[Sherlock Holmes:] The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession.

This looks like one of those unwelcome social summonses which call upon a man either to be bored or to lie.

I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor?

The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when [Holmes] became a specialist in crime.

The setting is a worthy one, if the devil did desire to have a hand in the affairs of men.

It is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in itself. If, after doing so, one simply knocks out all the central inferences and presents one's audience with the starting-point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though perhaps a meretricious, effect.

You have been in Afghanistan I perceive.