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by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings,save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up allnight, was seated at the breakfast table. I stood upon thehearth-rug and picked up the stick which our visitor had leftbehind 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 inchacross. "To James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of theC.C.H.," was engraved upon it, with the date "1884." It was justsuch a stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner used tocarry—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 nosign of my occupation.
"How did you know what I was doing? I believe you have eyes inthe back of your head."
"I have, at least, a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot infront of me," said he. "But, tell me, Watson, what do you make ofour visitor's stick? Since we have been so unfortunate as to misshim and have no notion of his errand, this accidental souvenirbecomes of importance. Let me hear you reconstruct the man by anexamination of it."
"I think," said I, following as far as I could the methods of mycompanion, "that Dr. Mortimer is a successful, elderly medicalman, well-es