[Illustration: E]Essential as sulphuric acid is to the ignition of the
platinum in an hydropneumatic lamp; so is half-and-half to the proper
illumination of a Medical Student's faculties. The Royal College of
Surgeons may thunder and the lecturers may threaten, but all to no effect;
for, like the slippers in the Eastern story, however often the pots may be
ordered away from the dissecting-room, somehow or other they always find
their way back again with unflinching pertinacity. All the world inclined
towards beer knows that the current price of a pot of half-and-half is
fivepence, and by this standard the Medical Student fixes his expenses. He
says he has given three pots for a pair of Berlin gloves, and speaks of a
half-crown as a six-pot piece.
Mr. Muff takes the goodly measure in his hand, and decapitating its
"spuma" with his pipe, from which he flings it into Mr. Simpson's face,
indulges in a prolonged drain, and commences his narrative--most probably
in the following manner:--
"You know we should all have got on very well if Rapp hadn't been such a
fool as to pull away the lanthorns from the place where they are putting
down the wood pavement in the Strand, and swear he was a watchman. I
thought the crusher saw us, and so I got ready for a bolt, when Manhug
said the blocks had no right to obstruct the footpath; and, shoving down a
whole wall of them into the street, voted for stopping to play at _duck_
with them. Whilst he was trying how many he could pitch across the Strand
against the shutters opposite, down came the _pewlice_ and off we cut."
"I had a tight squeak for it," interrupts Mr. Rapp; "but I beat them at
last, in the dark of the Durham-street arch. That's a dodge worth being up
to when you get into a row near the Adelphi. Fire away, Muff--where did
you go?"
"Right up a court to Maiden-lane, in the hope of bolting into the
Cider-cellars. But they were all shut up, and the fire out in the kitchen,
so I ran on through a lot of alleys and back-slums, until I got somewhere
in St. Giles's, and here I took a cab."
"Why, you hadn't got an atom of tin when you left us," says Mr. Manhug.
"Devil a bit did that signify. You know I only took the _cab_--I'd nothing
at all to do with the driver; he was all right in the gin-shop near the
stand, I suppose. I got on the box, and drove about for my own
diversion--I don't exactly know where; but I couldn't leave the cab, as
there was always a crusher in the way when I stopped. At last I found
myself at the large gate of New Square, Lincoln's Inn, so I knocked until
the porter opened it, and drove in as straight as I could. When I got to
the corner of the square, by No. 7, I pulled up, and, tumbling off my
perch, walked quietly along to the Portugal-street wicket. Here the other
porter let me out, and I found myself in Lincoln's Inn Fields."
"And what became of the cab?" asks Mr. Jones.
"How should I know!--it was no affair of mine. I dare say the horse made
it right; it didn't matter to him whether he was standing in St. Giles's
or Lincoln's Inn, only the last was the most respectable."
"I don't see that," says Mr. Manhug, refilling his pipe.
"Why, all the thieves in London live in St. Giles's."
"Well, and who live in Lincoln's Inn?"
"Pshaw! that's all worn out," continues Manhug. "I got to the College of
Surgeons, and had a good mind to scud some oyster shells through the
windows, only there were several people about--fellows coming home to
chambers, and the like; so I pattered on until I found myself in
Drury-lane, close to a coffee-shop that was open. There I saw such a jolly
row!"
Mr. Muff utters this last sentence in the same ecstatic accents of
admiration with which we speak of a lovely woman or a magnificent view.
"What was it about?" eagerly demand the rest of the circle.
"Why, just as I got in, a gentleman of a vivacious turn of mind, who was
taking an early breakfast, had shied a soft-boiled egg at the gas-light,
which didn't hit it, of course, but flew across the tops of the boxes, and
broke upon a lady's head."
"What a mess it must have made?" interposes Mr. Manhug. "Coffee-shop eggs
are always so very albuminous."
"Once I found some feathers in one, and a foetal chick," observes Mr.
Rapp.
"Knock that down for a good one!" says Mr. Jones, taking the poker and
striking three distinct blows on the mantel-piece, the last of which
breaks off the corner. "Well, what did the lady do?"
"Commenced kicking up an extensive shindy, something between crying,
coughing, and abusing, until somebody in a fustian coat, addressing the
assailant, said, 'he was no gentleman, whoever he was, to throw eggs at a
woman; and that if he'd come out he'd pretty soon butter his crumpets on
both sides for him, and give him pepper for nothing.' The master of the
coffee shop now came forward and said, 'he wasn't a going to have no
uproar in his house, which was very respectable, and always used by the
first of company, and if they wanted to quarrel, they might fight it out
in the streets.' Whereupon they all began to barge the master at
once,--one saying 'his coffee was all snuff and duckweed,' or something of
the kind; whilst the other told him 'he looked as measly as a mouldy
muffin;' and then all of a sudden a lot of half-pint cups and pewter
spoons flew up in the air, and the three men began an indiscriminate
battle all to themselves, in one of the boxes, 'fighting quite permiscus,'
as the lady properly observed. I think the landlord was worst off though;
he got a very queer wipe across the face from the handle of his own
toasting-fork."
"And what did you do, Muff?" asks Mr. Manhug.
"Ah, that was the finishing card of all. I put the gas out, and was
walking off as quietly as could be, when some policemen who heard the row
outside met me at the door, and wouldn't let me pass. I said I would, and
they said I should not, until we came to scuffling, and then one of them
calling to some more, told them to take me to Bow-street, which they did;
but I made them carry me though. When I got into the office they had not
any especial charge to make against me, and the old bird behind the
partition said I might go about my business; but, as ill luck would have
it, another of the unboiled ones recognised me as one of the party who had
upset the wooden blocks--he knew me again by my d--d Taglioni."
"And what did they do to you?"
"Marched me across the yard and locked me up; when to my great consolation
in my affliction, I found Simpson, crying and twisting up his
pocket-handkerchief, as if he was wringing it; and hoping his friends
would not hear of his disgrace through the _Times_."
"What a love you are, Simpson!" observes Mr. Jones patronisingly. "Why,
how the deuce could they, if you gave a proper name? I hope you called
yourself James Edwards."
Mr. Simpson blushes, blows his nose, mutters something about his card-case
and telling an untruth, which excites much merriment; and Mr. Muff
proceeds:--
"The beak wasn't such a bad fellow after all, when we went up in the
morning. I said I was ashamed to confess we were both disgracefully
intoxicated, and that I would take great care nothing of the same
humiliating nature should occur again; whereupon we were fined twelve pots
each, and I tossed sudden death with Simpson which should pay both. He
lost and paid down the dibs. We came away, and here we are."
The mirth proceeds, and, ere long, gives place to harmony; and when the
cookery is finished, the bird is speedily converted into an anatomical
preparation,--albeit her interarticular cartilages are somewhat tough, and
her lateral ligaments apparently composed of a substance between leather
and caoutchouc. As afternoon advances, the porter of the dissecting-room
finds them performing an incantation dance round Mr. Muff, who, seated on
a stool placed upon two of the tressels, is rattling some halfpence in a
skull, accompanied by Mr. Rapp, who is performing a difficult concerto on
an extempore instrument of his own invention, composed of the Scotchman's
hat, who is still grinding in the Museum, and the identical thigh-bone
that assisted to hang Mr. Muff's patriarchal old hen!
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