Detektivní klasika

1. Pečlivě si přečtěte celý úryvek. Kompletní text najdete v Projektu Guttenberg.
2. Vypište si výrazy a obraty, které neznáte. Při hledání jejich významu pokaždé kontrolujte výsledek ve více zdrojích.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/
http://www.urbandictionary.com/
http://www.slovnik.cz/
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/
http://www.wisegeek.com/

3. Přeložte tučně vyznačenou část textu a překlad vložte do komentáře k tomuto blogu.

_____________________

Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save
upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated
at the breakfast table. I stood upon the hearth-rug and picked up the
stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before. It was a
fine, thick piece of wood, bulbous-headed, of the sort which is known as
a "Penang lawyer." Just under the head was a broad silver band nearly
an inch across. "To James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of the
C.C.H.," was engraved upon it, with the date "1884." It was just such a
stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner used to carry--dignified,
solid, and reassuring.

"Well, Watson, what do you make of it?"

Holmes was sitting with his back to me, and I had given him no sign of
my occupation.

"How did you know what I was doing? I believe you have eyes in the back
of your head."

"I have, at least, a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot in front of
me," said he. "But, tell me, Watson, what do you make of our visitor's
stick? Since we have been so unfortunate as to miss him and have no
notion of his errand, this accidental souvenir becomes of importance.
Let me hear you reconstruct the man by an examination of it."

"I think," said I, following as far as I could the methods of my
companion, "that Dr. Mortimer is a successful, elderly medical man,
well-esteemed since those who know him give him this mark of their
appreciation."

"Good!" said Holmes. "Excellent!"

"I think also that the probability is in favour of his being a country
practitioner who does a great deal of his visiting on foot."

"Why so?"

"Because this stick, though originally a very handsome one has been so
knocked about that I can hardly imagine a town practitioner carrying it.
The thick-iron ferrule is worn down, so it is evident that he has done a
great amount of walking with it."

"Perfectly sound!" said Holmes.

"And then again, there is the 'friends of the C.C.H.' 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."

"Really, Watson, you excel yourself," said Holmes, pushing back his
chair and lighting a cigarette. "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. It may
be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of
light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of
stimulating it. I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very much in your
debt."

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

"Interesting, though elementary," said he as he returned to his
favourite corner of the settee. "There are certainly one or two
indications upon the stick. It gives us the basis for several
deductions."

"Has anything escaped me?" I asked with some self-importance. "I trust
that there is nothing of consequence which I have overlooked?"

"I am afraid, my dear Watson, that most of your conclusions were
erroneous. When I said that you stimulated me I meant, to be frank, that
in noting your fallacies I was occasionally guided towards the truth.
Not that you are entirely wrong in this instance. The man is certainly a
country practitioner. And he walks a good deal."

"Then I was right."

"To that extent."

"But that was all."

"No, no, my dear Watson, not all--by no means all. I would suggest, for
example, that a presentation to a doctor is more likely to come from a
hospital than from a hunt, and that when the initials 'C.C.' are placed
before that hospital the words 'Charing Cross' very naturally suggest
themselves."

"You may be right."

"The probability lies in that direction. And if we take this as a
working hypothesis we have a fresh basis from which to start our
construction of this unknown visitor."

"Well, then, supposing that 'C.C.H.' does stand for 'Charing Cross
Hospital,' what further inferences may we draw?"

"Do none suggest themselves? You know my methods. Apply them!"

"I can only think of the obvious conclusion that the man has practised
in town before going to the country."

"I think that we might venture a little farther than this. Look at it
in this light. On what occasion would it be most probable 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 a 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 the
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-surgeon 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 Comparative Pathology,
        with essay entitled 'Is Disease a Reversion?'  Corresponding
        member of the Swedish Pathological Society.  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, unambitious, 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 visiting-card after waiting an hour in your room."

"And the dog?"

"Has been in the habit of carrying this stick behind his master. Being a
heavy stick the dog has held it tightly by the middle, and the marks of
his teeth are very plainly visible. The dog's jaw, as shown in the space
between these marks, is too broad in my opinion for a terrier and not
broad enough for a mastiff. It may have been--yes, by Jove, it is a
curly-haired spaniel."

He had risen and paced the room as he spoke. Now he halted in the recess
of the window. There was such a ring of conviction in his voice that I
glanced up in surprise.

"My dear fellow, how can you possibly be so sure of that?"

"For the very simple reason that I see the dog himself on our very
door-step, and there is the ring of its owner. Don't move, I beg you,
Watson. He is a professional brother of yours, and your presence may be
of assistance to me. Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when
you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you
know not whether for good or ill. What does Dr. James Mortimer, the man
of science, ask of Sherlock Holmes, the specialist in crime? Come in!"