1. Previously to going up, take some pills and get your hair cut. This not
only clears your faculties, but improves your appearance. The Court of
Examiners dislike long hair.
2. Do not drink too much stout before you go in, with the idea that it
will give you pluck. It renders you very valiant for half an hour and then
muddles your notions with indescribable confusion.
3. Having arrived at the Hall, put your rings and chains in your pocket,
and, if practicable, publish a pair of spectacles. This will endow you
with a grave look.
4. On taking your place at the table, if you wish to gain time, feign to
be intensely frightened. One of the examiners will then rise to give you a
tumbler of water, which you may, with good effect, rattle tremulously
against your teeth when drinking. This may possibly lead them to excuse
bad answers on the score of extreme nervous trepidation.
5. Should things appear to be going against you, get up a hectic cough,
which is easily imitated, and look acutely miserable, which you will
probably do without trying.
6. Endeavour to assume an off-hand manner of answering; and when you have
stated any pathological fact--right or wrong--_stick to it_; if they
want a case for example, invent one, "that happened when you were an
apprentice in the country." This assumed confidence will sometimes bother
them. We knew a student who once swore at the Hall, that he gave opium in
a case of concussion of the brain, and that the patient never required
anything else. It was true--he never did.
7. Should you be fortunate enough to pass, go to your hospital next day
and report your examination, describing it as the most extraordinary
ordeal of deep-searching questions ever undergone. This will make the
professors think well of you, and the new men deem yon little less than a
mental Colossus. Say, also, "you were complimented by the Court." This
advice is, however, scarcely necessary, as we never know a student pass
who was not thus honoured--according to his own account.
* * * * *
All things being arranged to his satisfaction, he deposits his papers
under the care of Mr. Sayer, and passes the interval before the fatal day
much in the same state of mind as a condemned criminal. At last Thursday
arrives, and at a quarter to four, any person who takes the trouble to
station himself at the corner of Union-street will see various groups of
three and four young men wending their way towards the portals of
Apothecaries' Hall, consisting of students about to be examined,
accompanied by friends who come down with them to keep up their spirits.
They approach the door, and shake hands as they give and receive wishes of
success. The wicket closes on the candidates, and their friends adjourn to
the "Retail Establishment" opposite, to _go the odd man_ and pledge their
anxious companions in dissector's diet-drink--_vulgo_, half-and-half.
Leaving them to their libations, we follow our old friend Mr. Joseph Muff.
He crosses the paved court-yard with the air of a man who had lost
half-a-crown and found a halfpenny; and through the windows sees the
assistants dispensing plums, pepper, and prescriptions, with provoking
indifference. Turning to the left, he ascends a solemn-looking staircase,
adorned with severe black figures in niches, who support lamps. On the top
of the staircase he enters a room, wherein the partners of his misery are
collected. It is a long narrow apartment, commonly known as "the
funking-room," ornamented with a savage-looking fireplace at one end, and
a huge surly chest at the other; with gloomy presses against the walls,
containing dry mouldy books in harsh, repulsive bindings. The windows look
into the court; and the glass is scored by diamond rings, and the shutters
pencilled with names and sentences, which Mr. Muff regards with feelings
similar to those he would experience in contemplating the inscriptions on
the walls of a condemned cell. The very chairs in the room look
overbearing and unpleasant; and the whole locality is invested with an
overallishness of unanswerable questions and intricate botheration. Some
of the students are marching up and down the room in feverish
restlessness; others, arm in arm, are worrying each other to death with
questions; and the rest are grinding away to the last minute at a manual,
or trying to write minute atomic numbers on their thumb-nail.
The clock strikes five, and Mr. Sayer enters the room, exclaiming--"Mr.
Manhug, Mr. Jones, Mr. Saxby, and Mr. Collins." The four depart to the
chamber of examination, where the medical inquisition awaits them, with
every species of mental torture to screw their brains instead of their
thumbs, and rack their intellects instead of their limbs,--the chair on
which the unfortunate student is placed being far more uneasy than the
tightest fitting "Scavenger's daughter" in the Tower of London. After an
anxious hour, Mr. Jones returns, with a light bounding step to a joyous
extempore air of his own composing: he has passed. In another twenty
minutes Mr. Saxby walks fiercely in, calls for his hat, condemns the
examiners _ad inferos_, swears he shall cut the profession, and marches
away. He has been plucked; and Mr. Muff, who stands sixth on the list, is
called on to make his appearance before the awful tribunal.
* * * * *