A FIRST PROFESSIONAL.
Within a few weeks of his recovery from his accident Tom Dimsdale was to
go up for his first professional examination, and his father, who had
now retired from practice with a fair fortune, remained in Edinburgh
until that event should come off. There had been some difficulty in
persuading Girdlestone to give his consent to this prolongation of his
ward's leave, but the old merchant was very much engrossed with his own
affairs about that time, which made him more amenable than he might
otherwise have been. The two travellers continued, therefore, to reside
in their Princes Street hotel, but the student held on to his lodgings
in Howe Street, where he used to read during the morning and afternoon.
Every evening, however, he managed to dine at the _Royal_, and would
stay there until his father packed him off to his books once more.
It was in vain for him to protest and to plead for another half-hour.
The physician was inexorable. When the fated hour came round the
unhappy youth slowly gathered together his hat, his gloves, and his
stick, spreading out that operation over the greatest possible extent of
time which it could by any means be made to occupy. He would then
ruefully bid his kinsfolk adieu, and retire rebelliously to his books.
Very soon, however, he made a discovery. From a certain seat in the
Princes Street Gardens it was possible to see the interior of the
sitting-room in which the visitors remained after dinner. From the time
when this fact dawned upon him, his rooms in the evening knew him no
more. The gardens were locked at night, but that was a mere trifle.
He used to scramble over the railings like a cat, and then, planting
himself upon the particular seat, he would keep a watch upon the hotel
window until the occupants of the room retired to rest. It might happen
that his cousin remained invisible. Then he would return to his rooms
in a highly dissatisfied state, and sit up half the night protesting
against fate and smoking strong black tobacco. On the other hand, if he
had the good luck to see the graceful figure of his old playfellow, he
felt that that was the next best thing to being actually in her company,
and departed eventually in a more contented frame of mind. Thus, when
Dr. Dimsdale fondly imagined his son to be a mile away grappling with
the mysteries of science, that undutiful lad was in reality perched
within sixty yards of him, with his thoughts engrossed by very different
matters.
Kate could not fail to understand what was going on. However young and
innocent a girl may be, there is always some subtle feminine instinct
which warns her that she is loved. Then first she realizes that she has
passed the shadowy frontier line which divides the child-life from that
of the woman. Kate felt uneasy and perplexed, and half involuntarily
she changed her manner towards him.
It had been frank and sisterly; now it became more distant and
constrained. He was quick to observe the change, and in private raved
and raged at it. He even made the mistake of showing his pique to her,
upon which she became still more retiring and conventional. Then he
bemoaned himself in the sleepless watches of the night, and confided to
his bed-post that in his belief such a case had never occurred before in
the history of the world, and never by any chance could or would happen
again. He also broke out into an eruption of bad verses, which were
found by his landlady during her daily examination of his private
papers, and were read aloud to a select audience of neighbours, who were
all much impressed, and cackled sympathetically among themselves.
By degrees Tom developed other symptoms of the distemper which had come
upon him so suddenly. He had always been remarkable for a certain
towsiness of appearance and carelessness of dress which harmonized with
his Bohemian habits. All this he suddenly abjured. One fine morning he
paid successive visits to his tailor, his boot-maker, his hatter, and
his hosier, which left all those worthy tradesmen rubbing their hands
with satisfaction. About a week afterwards he emerged from his rooms in
a state of gorgeousness which impressed his landlady and amazed his
friends. His old college companions hardly recognized Tom's honest phiz
as it looked out above the most fashionable of coats and under the
glossiest of hats.
His father was anything but edified by the change.
"I don't know what's coming over the lad, Kate," he remarked after one
of his visits. "If I thought he was going to turn to a fop, by the Lord
Harry I'd disown him! Don't you notice a change in him yourself?"
Kate managed to evade the question, but her bright blush might have
opened the old man's eyes had he observed it. He hardly realized yet
that his son really was a man, and still less did he think of John
Harston's little girl as a woman. It is generally some comparative
stranger who first makes that discovery and brings it home to friends
and relatives.
Love has an awkward way of intruding itself at inconvenient times, but
it never came more inopportunely than when it smote one who was reading
for his first professional examination. During these weeks, when Tom
was stumping about in boots which were two sizes too small for him, in
the hope of making his muscular, well-formed foot a trifle more elegant,
and was splitting gloves in a way which surprised his glover, all his
energies ought by rights to have been concentrated upon the mysteries of
botany, chemistry, and zoology. During the precious hours that should
have been devoted to the mastering of the sub-divisions of the
celenterata or the natural orders of endogenous plants, he was expending
his energies in endeavouring to recall the words of the song which his
cousin had sung the evening before, or to recollect the exact intonation
with which she remarked to him that it had been a fine day, or some
other equally momentous observation. It follows that, as the day of the
examination came round, the student, in his lucid intervals, began to
feel anxious for the result. He had known his work fairly well,
however, at one time, and with luck he might pull through. He made an
energetic attempt to compress a month's reading into a week, and when
the day for the written examination came round he had recovered some of
his lost ground. The papers suited him fairly well, and he felt as he
left the hall that he had had better fortune than he deserved. The
_viva voce_ ordeal was the one, however, which he knew would be most
dangerous to him, and he dreaded it accordingly.
It was a raw spring morning when his turn came to go up. His father and
Kate drove round with him to the University gates.
"Keep up your pluck, Tom," the old gentleman said. "Be cool, and have
all your wits about you. Don't lose your head, whatever you do."
"I seem to have forgotten the little I ever knew," Tom said dolefully,
as he trudged up the steps. As he looked back he saw Kate wave her hand
to him cheerily, and it gave him fresh heart.
"We shall hope to see you at lunch time," his father shouted after him.
"Mind you bring us good news." As he spoke the carriage rattled away
down the Bridges, and Tom joined the knot of expectant students who were
waiting at the door of the great hall.
A melancholy group they were, sallow-faced, long-visaged and dolorous,
partly from the effects of a long course of study and partly from their
present trepidation. It was painful to observe their attempts to appear
confident and unconcerned as they glanced round the heavens, as if to
observe the state of the weather, or examined with well-feigned
archaeological fervour the inscriptions upon the old University walls.
Most painful of all was it, when some one, plucking up courage, would
venture upon a tiny joke, at which the whole company would gibber in an
ostentatious way, as though to show that even in this dire pass the
appreciation of humour still remained with them. At times, when any of
their number alluded to the examination or detailed the questions which
had been propounded to Brown or Baker the day before, the mask of
unconcern would be dropped, and the whole assembly would glare eagerly
and silently at the speaker. Generally on such occasions matters are
made infinitely worse by some Job's comforter, who creeps about
suggesting abstruse questions, and hinting that they represent some
examiner's particular hobby. Such a one came to Dimsdale's elbow, and
quenched the last ray of hope which lingered in the young man's bosom.
"What do you know about cacodyl?" was his impressive question.
"Cacodyl?" Tom cried aghast. "It's some sort of antediluvian reptile,
isn't it?"
The questioner broke into a sickly smile. "No," he said. "It's an
organic explosive chemical compound. You're sure to be asked about
cacodyl. Tester's dead on it. He asks every one how it is prepared."
Tom, much perturbed at these tidings, was feverishly endeavouring to
extract some little information from his companion concerning the
compound, when a bell rang abruptly inside the room and a janitor with a
red face and a blue slip of paper appeared at the door.
"Dillon, Dimsdale, Douglas," this functionary shouted in a very pompous
voice, and three unhappy young men filed through the half-opened door
into the solemn hall beyond.
The scene inside was not calculated to put them at their ease. Three
tables, half a dozen yards from each other, were littered with various
specimens and scientific instruments, and behind each sat two elderly
gentlemen, stern-faced and critical. At one side were stuffed specimens
of various small beasts, numerous skeletons and skulls, large jars
containing fish and reptiles preserved in spirits of wine, jawbones with
great teeth which grinned savagely at the unfortunate candidate, and
numerous other zoological relics. The second table was heaped over with
a blaze of gorgeous orchids and tropical plants, which looked strangely
out of place in the great bleak room. A row of microscopes bristled
along the edge. The third was the most appalling of all, for it was
bare with the exception of several sheets of paper and a pencil.
Chemistry was the most dangerous of the many traps set to ensnare the
unwary student.
"Dillon--botany; Dimsdale--zoology; Douglas--chemistry," the janitor
shouted once more, and the candidates moved in front of the respective
tables. Tom found himself facing a great spider crab, which appeared to
be regarding him with a most malignant expression upon its crustacean
features. Behind the crab sat a little professor, whose projecting eyes
and crooked arms gave him such a resemblance to the creature in front
that the student could not help smiling.
"Sir," said a tall, clean-shaven man at the other end of the table, "be
serious. This is no time for levity."
Tom's expression after that would have made the fortune of a mute.
"What is this?" asked the little professor, handing a small round object
to the candidate.
"It is an echinus--a sea-urchin," Tom said triumphantly.
"Have they any circulation?" asked the other examiner.
"A water vascular system."
"Describe it."
Tom started off fluently, but it was no part of the policy of the
examiners to allow him to waste the fifteen minutes allotted them in
expatiating upon what he knew well. They interrupted him after a few
sentences.
"How does this creature walk?" asked the crab-like one.
"By means of long tubes which it projects at pleasure."
"How do the tubes enable the creature to walk?"
"They have suckers on them."
"What are the suckers like?"
"They are round hollow discs."
"Are you sure they are round?" asked the other sharply.
"Yes," said Tom stoutly, though his ideas on the subject were rather
vague."
"And how does this sucker act?" asked the taller examiner.
Tom began to feel that these two men were exhibiting a very unseemly
curiosity. There seemed to be no satiating their desire for
information. "It creates a vacuum," he cried desperately.
"How does it create a vacuum?"
"By the contraction of a muscular pimple in the centre," said Tom, in a
moment of inspiration.
"And what makes this pimple contract?"
Tom lost his head, and was about to say "electricity," when he happily
checked himself and substituted "muscular action."
"Very good," said the examiners, and the student breathed again. The
taller one returned to the charge, however, with, "And this muscle--is
it composed of striped fibres or non-striped?"
"Non-striped," shrieked Tom at a venture, and both examiners rubbed
their hands and murmured, "Very good, indeed!" at which Tom's hair began
to lie a little flatter, and he ceased to feel as if he were in a
Turkish bath.
"How many teeth has a rabbit?" the tall man asked suddenly.
"I don't know," the student answered with candour.
The two looked triumphantly at one another.
"He doesn't know!" cried the goggle-eyed one decisively.
"I should recommend you to count them the next time you have one for
dinner," the other remarked. As this was evidently meant for a joke,
Tom had the tact to laugh, and a very gruesome and awe-inspiring laugh
it was too.
Then the candidate was badgered about the pterodactyl, and concerning
the difference in anatomy between a bat and a bird, and about the
lamprey, and the cartilaginous fishes, and the amphioxus. All these
questions he answered more or less to the satisfaction of the
examiners--generally less. When at last the little bell tinkled which
was the sign for candidates to move on to other tables, the taller man
leaned over a list in front of him and marked down upon it the following
hieroglyphic:--
"S. B.--."
This Tom's sharp eye at once detected, and he departed well pleased, for
he knew that the "S. B." meant _satis bene_, and as to the minus sign
after it, it mattered little to him whether he had done rather more than
well or rather less. He had passed in zoology, and that was all which
concerned him at present.