My worst enemy--and, alas! I have many--would not accuse me of being of
a romantic disposition.
In the profession of medicine any romance, acquired in one's youth or
college days, is quickly knocked out of one by the first term at the
hospital. The medical student quickly becomes, in a manner, callous to
human suffering, and by the time he obtains his degree he is generally a
shrewd and sympathetic observer, but with every spark of romance crushed
dead within his heart. Thus, there is no bachelor more confirmed than
the celibate doctor.
I had left Guy's a year. It is not so very long ago, for I am still
under forty--young, they say, to have made my mark. True, success has
come to me suddenly, and very unworthily, I think, for I confess that my
advancement has been more by good luck than by actual worth.
At Guy's I had been under Lister and other great men whose names will
ever remain as medical landmarks, and when I left with my degree I
quickly discovered that the doctor's calling was anything but lucrative.
My first engagement was as assistant to a country practitioner at
Woodbridge, in Suffolk; a man who had a large but very poor practice,
most of his patients being club ones. Upon the latter I was allowed to
exercise my maiden efforts in pills and mixtures, while my principal
indulged freely in whisky in his own room over the surgery. He was a
hard drinker, who treated his wife as badly as he did his patients, and
whose habit it was to enter the cottages of poor people who could not
pay him, and seize whatever piece of family china, bric-a-brac, or old
oak which he fancied, and forcibly carry it away as payment of the debt
owing. By this means he had, in the course of ten years, made quite a
presentable collection of curios, although he had more than once very
narrowly escaped getting into serious trouble over it.
I spent a miserable year driving, by day and by night, in sunshine and
rain, far afield over the Suffolk plains, for owing to my principal's
penchant for drink, the greater part of the work devolved upon myself.
The crisis occurred, however, when I had been with him some eighteen
months. While in a state of intoxication he was called out to treat a
man who had met with a serious accident in a neighbouring village. On
his return he gave me certain instructions, and sent me back to visit
the patient. The instructions--technical ones, with which it is useless
to puzzle the reader--I carried out to the letter, with the result that
the poor fellow's life was lost. Then followed an inquest, exposure,
censure from the coroner, a rider from the jury, and my employer, with
perfect _sang froid_, succeeded in fastening the blame upon myself in
order to save the scanty reputation he still enjoyed over the
countryside.
The jury were, of course, unaware that he was intoxicated when he
attended the man and committed the fatal blunder, while I, in perfect
innocence, had obeyed his injunctions. It is useless, however, to
protest before a coroner; therefore I at once resigned my position, and
that same night returned to London, full of indignation at the treatment
I had received.
My next practice was as an assistant to a man at Hull, who proved an
impossible person, and through the five years that followed I did my
best to alleviate human ills in Carlisle, Derby, Cheltenham, and Leeds
respectively.
The knowledge I obtained by such general and varied practice, being
always compelled to dispense my own prescriptions, was of course
invaluable. But it was terribly uphill work, and a doctor's drudge, as
I was, can save no money. Appearances have always to be kept up, and
one cannot put by very much on eighty or one hundred pounds a year.
Indeed, one night, seven years after leaving Guy's, I found myself again
in London, wandering idly along the Strand, without prospects, and with
only a single sovereign between myself and starvation.
I have often reflected upon that memorable night. How different the
world seemed then! In those days I was content to pocket a single
shilling as a fee; now they are guineas, ten or more, for as many
minutes of consultation. It was an unusually hot June, and the night
was quite stifling for so early in summer. Although eight o'clock, it
was not yet dark; but, as I strolled westward past the Adelphi, there
was in the sky that dull purple haze with which Londoners are familiar,
the harbinger of a storm. I had sought several old friends of hospital
days, but all were out of town. June was running out, and the season
was at an end.
London may be declared empty, and half a million persons may have left
to disport themselves in the country or by the sea, yet the ebb and flow
in that most wonderful thoroughfare in the world--the Strand--is ever
the same, the tide in the dog-days being the same as in December. It is
the one highway in London that never changes.
I had strolled along to the corner of Bedford Street, down-hearted and
low-spirited, I must confess. Ah! to know how absolutely lonely a man
can be amid those hurrying millions, one must be penniless. In the
seven years that had passed, most of my friends had dispersed, and those
who still remained cared little for a ne'er-do-well such as myself. In
that walk I calmly reviewed the situation. Away in quiet old Shrewsbury
my white-haired, widowed mother lived frugally, full of fond thoughts of
her only boy. She had brought herself to the verge of poverty that I
might complete my studies and become a doctor. Poor mother! She
believed, like so many believe, that every doctor makes a comfortable
income. And I had worked--nay, slaved--night and day, through seven
whole years, for less wage than an average artisan.
I had not dined, for, truth to tell, I had hesitated to change my last
sovereign; but the pangs of hunger reminded me that nothing had passed
my lips since the breakfast in my dingy lodgings, and knowing of a cheap
eating-house in Covent Garden, I had paused for a moment at the corner.
Next instant I felt a hearty slap on the back, and a cheery voice
cried--
"Why, Colkirk, old fellow, what's up? You look as though you're going
to a funeral?"
I turned quickly and saw a round, fresh-coloured, familiar face before
me.
"By Jove!" I exclaimed in pleasant surprise. "Raymond! is it really
you?" And we grasped hands heartily.
"I fancy so," he laughed. "At least, it's what there is left of me. I
went out to Accra, you know, got a sharp touch of fever, and they only
sent back my skeleton and skin."
Bob Raymond was always merry and amusing. He had been the humourist of
Guy's, in my time: the foremost in practical joking, and the most
backward in learning. The despair of more than one eminent lecturer, he
had, nevertheless, been one of the most popular fellows in our set, and
had occupied diggings in the next house to where I lodged in a mean
street off Newington Butts.
"Well," I laughed, "if you left your flesh behind you on the West Coast,
you've filled out since. Why, you're fatter than ever. What's your
beverage? Cod-liver oil?"
"No; just now it's whisky-and-seltzer with a big chunk of ice. Come
into Romano's and have one. You look as though you want cheering up."
I accepted his invitation, and we strolled back to the bar he had
mentioned.
He was a short, fair-haired, sturdily-built fellow with a round face
which gave him the appearance of an overgrown boy, a pair of blue eyes
that twinkled with good fellowship, cheeks that struck me as just a
trifle too ruddy to be altogether healthy, a small mouth, and a tiny,
drooping, yellow moustache. He wore a silk hat of brilliant gloss, a
frock-coat, as became one of "the profession," and carried in his hand a
smart ebony cane with a silver crook. I noticed, as we stood at the
bar, that his hat bulged slightly on either side, and knew that in it
was concealed his stethoscope. He was therefore in practice.
Over our drinks we briefly related our experiences, for we had both left
the hospital at the same term, and had never met or heard of each other
since. I told him of my drudgery, disappointment, and despair, to which
he listened with sympathetic ear. Then he told me of himself. He had
gone out to Accra, had a narrow squeak with a bad attack of fever,
returned to London to recover, and became assistant to a well-known man
at Plymouth.
"And what are you doing now?" I inquired.
"I've started a little practice over in Hammersmith," he answered.
"I've been there a year; but Hammersmith seems such a confoundedly
healthy spot."
"You haven't got many patients--eh?" I said, smiling.
"Unfortunately, no. The red lamp doesn't seem to attract them any more
than the blue lamp before the police-station. If there was only a bit
of zymotic disease, I might make a pound or two; but as it is, gout,
indigestion, and drink seem to be the principal ailments at present."
Then he added, "But if you're not doing anything, why don't you come
down and stay a day or two with me? I'm alone, and we'd be mutual
company. In the meantime you might hear of something from the _Lancet_.
Where's your diggings?"