congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an
exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional
manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which
produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an
elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid."

"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 unraveling 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 a Jezail 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 considerable gifts himself. He possesses two out of t