doeskinandpetals:

Holmes was human enough to make mistakes, and human enough to resent their being found out. It became my habit, therefore, both in my personal relations with him, and in the narratives which I was putting before the public, to cover up, as far as possible, the very natural errors into which he fell, and to heighten the public appreciation of his amazing talent by contrasting it whenever possible with an assumed obtuseness of my own. it amuses me now to think how little he suspected this, just as it fills me with pride to think how greatly he, and through him the country, profited by it.