Does anyone know why these two Sherlock Holmes stories begin alike?

"The Adventure of the Cardboard Box" was not published in the first British edition of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, but it was published in the first American edition, but it was quickly removed. The story was later published again in American editions of His Last Bow, and put into British editions of the Memoirs. Even today, most American editions of the canon include it with His Last Bow, while most British editions keep the story in its original place, within the Memoirs.

Due to this, the mind-reading trick of Holmes was transposed to "The Resident Patient". This passage in the beginning reveals Dr. Watson to be an avid admirer of Henry Ward Beecher, whose portrait he keeps at his home. The passage seems to have little to do with the mystery, mainly intended to let Holmes reach a new peak of his deductive powers, virtually reading Watson's thoughts. However, it might be considered an oblique hint dropped by Doyle for an observant reader - since Beecher was involved in a famous adultery trial, which would have easily come to the mind of reader at the time of publication.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_of_the_...

I don't quite remember the beginnings though I've read both stories. You must remember that it is not Sherlock Holmes but Dr Watson who is narrating the story. If the two beginnings are the same it is probably because the background information is the same, like where Holmes and himself were staying at the time of that particular incident, the time of year, etc.

Hope this helps!

In "The pink-Headed League" we come across right here substitute: "What are you going to do, then?" I asked. "To smoke," he spoke back. "that is extremely a three pipe concern, and that i urge which you will no longer communicate to me for 50 minutes." He curled himself up in his chair, along with his skinny knees drawn as much as his hawk-like nostril, and there he sat along with his eyes closed and his black clay pipe thrusting out like the bill of a few unusual chook. In "the guy with the Twisted Lip" Watson famous Holmes disguised and smoking in an opium den, and, as pronounced earlier, he later keeps to be up all night surrounded with the aid of pillows and the smoke curling up from his pipe all night. In "The Hound of the Baskervilles" we've right here substitute: My first impact as I opened the door became that a hearth had broken out, for the room became so packed with smoke that the easy of the lamp upon the table became blurred with the aid of it. As I entered, in spite of the undeniable fact that, my fears have been set at relax, for it became the acrid fumes of sturdy coarse tobacco which took me with the aid of the throat and set me coughing. in the process the haze I had a obscure creative and prescient of Holmes in his dressing-dress coiled up in an armchair along with his black clay pipe between his lips. various rolls of paper lay around him. "caught chilly, Watson?" reported he. "No, that is this poisonous ecosystem." "i think that is rather thick, now which you point out it." "Thick! that is intolerable." "Open the window, then! you have been at your club all day, I come across." "My expensive Holmes!" "Am I precise?" "actual, yet how --?" He laughed at my bewildered expression. In "the journey of the Golden Pince-Nez" Holmes smoked cigarettes in speedy succession to blanket the floor with ash.