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THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES

Another Adventure of Sherlock Holmes

My dear Robinson,

It was to your account of a West-Country legend that this tale owes its

inception. For this and for your help in the details all thanks.

Yours most truly,

A. Conan Doyle.

Chapter 1. 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.”

  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
  that 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 window, he looked over it again with a
  convex lens.

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