"Now, I suppose, Stone, from looking at those shoes, you can
deduce all there is to know about the owner of them."

I remember that Sherlock Holmes wrote once, "From a drop of
water, a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a
Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other," but
when I heard Fleming Stone's reply to my half-laughing challenge,
I felt that he had outdone the mythical logician. With a mild
twinkle in his eye, but with a perfectly grave face, he said
slowly

"Those shoes belong to a young man, five feet eight inches high.
He does not live in New York, but is here to visit his
sweetheart. She lives in Brooklyn, is five feet nine inches
tall, and is deaf in her left ear. They went to the theatre last
night, and neither was in evening dress."

"Oh, pshaw!" said I, "as you are acquainted with this man, and
know how he spent last evening, your relation of the story
doesn't interest me."

"I don't know him," Stone returned; "I've no idea what his name
is, I've never seen him, and except what I can read from these
shoes I know nothing about him."

I stared at him incredulously, as I always did when confronted by
his astonishing "deductions," and simply said

"Tell this little Missourian all about it."