The Hound of the Baskervilles: Mr. Sherlock Holmes

Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings,
save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all
night, was seated at the breakfast table. I stood upon the
hearth-rug and picked up the stick which our visitor had left
behind him the night before. It was a fine, thick piece of wood,
bulbous-headed, of the sort which is known as a “Penang lawyer.”
Just under the head was a broad silver band nearly an inch
across. “To James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of the
C.C.H.,” was engraved upon it, with the date “1884.” It was just
such a stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner used to
carry—dignified, solid, and reassuring.

“Well, Watson, what do you make of it?”

Holmes was sitting with his back to me, and I had given him no
sign of my occupation.

“How did you know what I was doing? I believe you have eyes in
the back of your head.”

“I have, at least, a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot in
front of me,” said he. “But, tell me, Watson, what do you make of
our visitor’s stick? Since we have been so unfortunate as to miss
him and have no notion of his errand, this accidental souvenir
becomes of importance. Let me hear you reconstruct the man by an
examination of it.”

“I think,” said I, following as far as I could the methods of my
companion, “that Dr. Mortimer is a successful, elderly medical
man, well-esteemed since those who know him give him this mark of
their appreciation.”

“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.”