Sherlock Holmes's particular faculty for observation is one of his defining characteristics. It is through his capacity to observe and interpret from the tiniest details that he is able to make his deductions, and consequently Watson, the narrator of the stories, is at pains to demonstrate this faculty to the reader. In the short story "A Scandal in Bohemia," for example, Watson is driven to visit Holmes by a desire to see how he is now "employing his extraordinary powers." Holmes immediately observes that Watson has "put on seven and a half pounds" since the last time they saw each other, from which he infers that Watson is well-suited to married life. Holmes also observes that Watson has "a most clumsy and careless servant girl." When Watson suggests that Holmes's deductive faculty is akin to witchcraft, Holmes is at pains to show him how logical, in fact, his deductions are. He identifies cuts on the inside of Watson's left shoe as indicative of the shoes having been scraped by a careless person in an attempt to remove mud that had been encrusted on to the shoes. Holmes is able to deduce from this that not only the careless servant girl, but also the fact that Watson has been recently out in particularly vile London weather.
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