"Doyle, Arthur Conan - Hound Of The Baskervilles, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doyle Arthur Conan)

"Good!" said Holmes. "Excellent!"

"I think also that the probability is in favour of his being
a country practitioner who does a great deal of his visiting
on foot."

"Why so?"

"Because this stick, though originally a very handsome one,
has been so knocked about that I can hardly imagine a town
practitioner carrying it. The thick iron ferrule is worn
down, so it is evident that he has done a great amount of
walking with it."

"Perfectly sound!" said Holmes.

"And then again, there is the 'friends of the C.C.H.'
I should guess that to be the Something Hunt, the local hunt
to whose members he has possibly given some surgical assistance,
and which has made him a small presentation in return."

"Really, Watson, you excel yourself," said Holmes, pushing
back his chair and lighting a cigarette. "I am bound to say
that in all the accounts which you have been so good as to
give of my own small achievements you have habitually
underrated your own abilities. It may be that you are not
yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some
people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of
stimulating it. I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very
much in your debt."

He had never said as much before, and I must admit that his
words gave me keen pleasure, for I had often been piqued by
his indifference to my admiration and to the attempts which
I had made to give publicity to his methods. I was proud
too to think that I had so far mastered his system as to
apply it in a way which earned his approval. He now took
the stick from my hands and examined it for a few minutes
with his naked eyes. Then with an expression of interest
he laid down his cigarette and, carrying the cane to the
window, he looked over it again with a convex lens.

"Interesting, though elementary," said he, as he returned to
his favourite corner of the settee. "There are certainly
one or two indications upon the stick. It gives us the
basis for several deductions."

"Has anything escaped me?" I asked, with some self-importance.
"I trust that there is nothing of consequence which I have
overlooked?"