"But the romance was there," I remonstrated. "I could not
tamper with the facts."

  "Some facts should be suppressed, or, at least, a just sense of
proportion should be observed in treating them. The only point
in the case which deserved mention was the curious analytical
reasoning from effects to causes, by which I succeeded in unrav-
elling it."

  I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been
specially designed to please him. I confess, too, that I was
irritated by the egotism which seemed to demand that every line
of my pamphlet should be devoted to his own special doings.
More than once during the years that I had lived with him in
Baker Street I had observed that a small vanity underlay my
companion's quiet and didactic manner. I made no remark
however, but sat nursing my wounded leg. I had had a Jezaii
bullet through it some time before, and though it did not prevent
me from walking it ached wearily at every change of the weather.

  "My practice has extended recently to the Continent," said
Holmes after a while, filling up his old brier-root pipe. "I was
consulted last week by Francois le Villard, who, as you
probably know, has come rather to the front lately in the French
detective service. He has all the Celtic power of quick intuition
but he is deficient in the wide range of exact knowledge which is
essential to the higher developments of his art. The case was
concerned with a will and possessed some features of interest. I
was able to refer him to two parallel cases, the one at Riga in
1857, and the other at St. Louis in 1871, which have suggested
to him the true solution. Here is the letter which I had this
morning acknowledging my assistance."

  He tossed over, as he spoke, a crumpled sheet of foreign
notepaper. I glanced my eyes down it, catching a profusion of
notes of admiration, with stray magnifiques, coup-de-maitres and
tours-de-force, all testifying to the ardent admiration of the
Frenchman.

  "He speaks as a pupil to his master," said I.

  "Oh, he rates my assistance too highly," said Sherlock Holmes
lightly. "He has coosiderable gifts himself. He possesses two
out of the three qualities necessary for the ideal detective. He has
the power of observation and that of deduction. He is only
wanting in knowledge, and that may come in time. He is now
translating my small works into French."

  "Your works?"

  "Oh, didn't you know?" he cried, laughing. "Yes, I have
been guilty of several monographs. They are all upon technical
subjects. Here, for example, is one 'Upon the Distinction be-
tween the Ashes of the Various Tobaccos.' In it I enumerate a
hundred and forty forms of cigar, cigarette, and pipe tobacco,
with coloured plates illustrating the difference in the ash. It is a
point which is continually turning up in criminal trials, and
which is sometimes of supreme importance as a clue. If you can
say definitely, for example, that some murder had been done by
a man who was smoking an Indian lunkah, it obviously narrows
your field of search. To the trained eye there is as much differ-
ence between the black ash of a Trichinopoly and the white fluff
of bird's-eye as there is between a cabbage and a potato."

  "You have an extraordinary genius for minutiae," I remarked.

  "I appreciate their importance. Here is my monograph upon
the tracing of footsteps, with some remarks upon the uses of
plaster of Paris as a preserver of impresses. Here, too, is a
curious little work upon the influence of a trade upon the form of
the hand, with lithotypes of the hands of slaters, sailors, cork-
cutters, compositors, weavers, and diamond-polishers. That is a
matter of great practical interest to the scientific detective -- 
especially in cases of unclaimed bodies, or in discovering the
antecedents of criminals. But I weary you with my hobby."

  "Not at all," I answered earnestly. "It is of the greatest
interest to me, especially since I have had the opportunity of
observing your practical application of it. But you spoke just
now of observation and deduction. Surely the one to some extent
implies the other."

  "Why, hardly," he answered, leaning back luxuriously in his
armchair and sending up thick blue wreaths from his pipe. "For
example, observation shows me that you have been to the Wigmore
Street Post-Office this morning, but deduction lets me know that
when there you dispatched a telegram."

  "Right!" said I. "Right on both points! But I confess that I
don't see how you arrived at it. It was a sudden impulse upon
my part, and I have mentioned it to no one."

  "It is simplicity itself," he remarked, chuckling at my
surprise -- "so absurdly simple that an explanation is superfluous;
and yet it may serve to define the limits of observation and of
deduction. Observation tells me that you have a little reddish
mould adhering to your instep. Just opposite the Wigmore Street
Office they have taken up the pavement and thrown up some
earth, which lies in such a way that it is difficult to avoid