45706    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.'

45707    'Really, Watson, you excel yourself,' said Holmes, pushing back his chair and lighting a cigarette.

45708    '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.

45709    It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light.

45710    Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.

45711    I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very much in your debt.'

45712    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.

45713    I was proud, too, to think that I had so far mastered his system as to apply it in a way which earned his approval.

45714    He now took the stick from my hands and examined it for a few minutes with his naked eyes.

45715    Then, with an expression of interest, he laid down his cigarette, and, carrying the cane to the window, he looked over it again with a convex lens.

45716    'Interesting, though elementary,' said he, as he returned to his favourite corner of the settee.

45717    'There are certainly one or two indications upon the stick.

45718    It gives us the basis for several deductions.'

45719    'Has anything escaped me?' I asked, with some self-importance.

45720    'I trust that there is nothing of consequence which I have overlooked?'