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luxuriously [lVg'ZurI@slI], wreath [rI:T], superfluous [su'p@:flu@s], neighbourhood ['neIb@hud]

"Why, hardly," he answered, leaning back luxuriously in his arm-chair, and sending up thick blue wreaths from his pipe. "For example, observation shows me that you have been to the Wigmore Street Post-Office this morning, but deduction lets me know that when there you despatched a telegram."

"Right!" said I. "Right on both points! But I confess that I don't see how you arrived at it. It was a sudden impulse upon my part, and I have mentioned it to no one."

"It is simplicity itself," he remarked, chuckling at my surprise, — "so absurdly simple that an explanation is superfluous; and yet it may serve to define the limits of observation and of deduction. Observation tells me that you have a little reddish mould adhering to your instep. Just opposite the Seymour Street Office they have taken up the pavement and thrown up some earth which lies in such a way that it is difficult to avoid treading in it in entering. The earth is of this peculiar reddish tint which is found, as far as I know, nowhere else in the neighbourhood. So much is observation. The rest is deduction."

"How, then, did you deduce the telegram (и как же вы тогда пришли к выводу, что я послал телеграмму: «вывели телеграмму»; to deduce — приходить к заключению, делать вывод)?"

"Why, of course I knew that you had not written a letter (ну, конечно, я знал, что писем вы не писали; to know — знать; to write — писать), since I sat opposite to you all morning (так как я сидел напротив вас все утро; to sit — сидеть). I see also in your open desk there that you have a sheet of stamps and a thick bundle of post-cards (я вижу также в открытом ящике вашего стола, что у вас есть лист марок и толстая пачка открыток; sheet — простыня; лист; bundle — узел, связка; пачка). What could you go into the post-office for, then, but to send a wire (для чего же вам тогда заходить на почту, если не для того, чтобы послать телеграмму; wire — проволока; телеграмма)? Eliminate all other factors (устраните все невозможное: «все другие причины»; factor — фактор, движущая сила), and the one which remains must be the truth (и то, что останется, должно быть правдой)."