Watson. Come at once if convenient. If inconvenient, come all the same.

This line appears as the text of a telegram sent to Dr. John Watson by Sherlock Holmes, summoning him urgently to Baker Street. It occurs at the outset of one of the Holmes short stories, functioning as a brisk narrative trigger: Watson is pulled away from his ordinary routines and back into Holmes’s world of sudden crises and investigations. The wording reflects Holmes’s characteristic impatience with social niceties and his assumption that Watson’s presence is essential, regardless of inconvenience. In the story’s framing, the message helps re-establish their partnership and signals to the reader that an unusual case is about to begin.

The humor of the telegram lies in its mock politeness: it offers a conditional courtesy (“if convenient”) only to cancel it immediately (“come all the same”). The line captures Holmes’s pragmatic, commanding temperament—he values efficiency and results over etiquette—and it also reveals the intimacy of the Holmes–Watson relationship. Holmes can be abrupt because he trusts Watson’s loyalty and readiness to drop everything when needed. As a piece of characterization, it compresses their dynamic into a single sentence: Holmes as the urgent, single-minded intellect; Watson as the dependable companion who will answer the call, convenient or not.