... 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 possibly a meretricious, effect. Now
it was not really difficult, by an inspection of the groove between
your left forefinger and thumb, to feel sure that you did not propose
to invest your small capital in the gold fields ...
-- Sherlock Holmes in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Dancing Men"
