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In my heart I accused my companion of putting forward a most lame and impotent excuse to cover his failure. What data could he expect from an uncleaned watch?

"Though unsatisfactory, my research has not been entirely barren," he observed, staring up at the ceiling with dreamy, lack-lustre eyes. "Subject to your correction, I should judge that the watch belonged to your elder brother, who inherited it from your father."

"That you gather, no doubt, from the H. W. upon the back?"

"Quite so. The W. suggests your own name.

The date of the watch is nearly fifty years back, and the initials are as old as the watch: so it was made for the last generation.

Jewellery usually descends to the eldest son, and he is most likely to have the same name as the father.

Your father has, if I remember right, been dead many years.

It has, therefore, been in the hands of your eldest brother."

"Right, so far," said I. "Anything else?"

"He was a man of untidy habits - very untidy and careless. He was left with good prospects, but he threw away his chances, lived for some time in poverty with occasional short intervals of prosperity, and finally, taking to drink, he died. That is all I can gather."

I sprang from my chair and limped impatiently about the room with considerable bitterness in my heart.

"This is unworthy of you, Holmes," I said.

"I could not have believed that you would have descended to this.

You have made inquiries into the history of my unhappy brother, and you now pretend to deduce this knowledge in some fanciful way.

You cannot expect me to believe that you have read all this from his old watch! It is unkind and, to speak plainly, has a touch of charlatanism in it."

"My dear doctor," said he kindly, "pray accept my apologies. Viewing the matter as an abstract problem, I had forgotten how personal and painful a thing it might be to you. I assure you, however, that I never even knew that you had a brother until you handed me the watch."

"Then how in the name of all that is wonderful did you get these facts? They are absolutely correct in every particular."

"Ah, that is good luck. I could only say what was the balance of probability. I did not at all expect to be so accurate."

"But it was not mere guesswork?"

"No, no: I never guess.

It is a shocking habit - destructive to the logical faculty.

What seems strange to you is only so because you do not follow my train of thought or observe the small facts upon which large inferences may depend.

For example, I began by stating that your brother was careless.

When you observe the lower part of that watch-case you notice that it is not only dinted in two places but it is cut and marked all over from the habit of keeping other hard objects, such as coins or keys, in the same pocket.

Surely it is no great feat to assume that a man who treats a fifty-guinea watch so cavalierly must be a careless man.

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