I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very much in your debt.'

Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it. It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light.

'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. 'Really, Watson, you excel yourself,' said Holmes, pushing back his chair and lighting a cigarette. '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.' The thick-iron ferrule is worn down, so it is evident that he has done a great amount of walking with it.' 'Because this stick, though originally a very handsome one has been so knocked about that I can hardly imagine a town practitioner carrying it. '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.' Mortimer is a successful, elderly medical man, well-esteemed since those who know him give him this mark of their appreciation.' 'I think,' said I, following as far as I could the methods of my companion, 'that Dr. Let me hear you reconstruct the man by an examination of it.' '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. 'I have, at least, a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot in front of me,' said he. 'How did you know what I was doing? I believe you have eyes in the back of your head.' Holmes was sitting with his back to me, and I had given him no sign of my occupation. '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. 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.

I stood upon the hearth-rug and picked up the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before. 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.

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