"Doyle, Arthur Conan - Hound Of The Baskervilles" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doyle Arthur Conan)

that such a presentation would be made? When would his friends
unite to give him a pledge of their good will? Obviously at the
moment when Dr. Mortimer withdrew from the service of the
hospital in order to start in practice for himself. We know there
has been a presentation. We believe there has been a change
from a town hospital to a country practice. Is it, then, stretching
our inference too far to say that the presentation was on the
occasion of the change?"
"It certainly seems probable."
"Now, you will observe that he could not have been on the
staff of ohe hospital, since only a man well-established in a
London practice could hold such a position, and such a one
would not drift into the country. What was he, then? If he was in
the hospital and yet not on the staff he could only have been a
house-surpeon or a house-physician -- little more than a senior
student. And he left five years ago -- the date is on the stick. So
your grave, middle-aged family practitioner vanishes into thin
air, my dear Watson, and there emerges a young fellow under
thirty, amiable, unambitious, absent-minded, and the possessor
of a favourite dog, which I should describe roughly as being
larger than a terrier and smaller than a mastiff."
I laughed incredulously as Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his
settee and blew little wavering rings of smoke up to the ceiling.
"As to the latter part, I have no means of checking you," said
I, "but at least it is not difficult to find out a few particulars
about the man's age and professional career." From my small
medical shelf I took down the Medical Directory and turned up
the name. There were several Mortimers, but only one who
could be our visitor. I read his record aloud.


"Mortimer, James, M.R.C.S., 1882, Grimpen, Dartmoor,
Devon. House-surgeon, from 1882 to 1884, at Charing
Cross Hospital. Winner of the Jackson prize for Compara-
tive Pathology, with essay entitled 'Is Disease a Reversion?'
Corresponding member of the Swedish Pathological Soci-
ety. Author of 'Some Freaks of Atavism' (Lancet 1882).
'Do We Progress?' (Journal of Psychology, March, 1883).
Medical Officer for the parishes of Grimpen, Thorsley, and
High Barrow."


"No mention of that local hunt, Watson," said Holmes with a
mischievous smile, "but a country doctor, as you very astutely
observed. I think that I am fairly justified in my inferences. As
to the adjectives, I said, if I remember right, amiable, unambi-
tious, and absent-minded. It is my experience that it is only an
amiable man in this world who receives testimonials, only an
unambitious one who abandons a London career for the country,
and only an absent-minded one who leaves his stick and not his