IN STUDENTS’ LODGINGS.
Heroes mischievously gay,
Lords of the street, and terrors of the way,
Flush’d as they are with folly, youth, and wine.
—_Johnson._
Throw physic to the dogs! A pipe—cheroot—
Pilot—and life-preserver—_voila tout!_
A little lecture now and then to boot,
A school or hospital to bustle thro’,
A few hard terms—on easy terms—to keep,
Then brown stout, billiards, half-slew’d and sleep!
—_Cruikshank’s Almanack._
Lindsay Street, where Elsworth took lodgings, was an old thoroughfare
at the back of the hospital grounds, and was largely occupied by
lodging-houses, in which those students boarded who desired to be handy
for their work, and have their fellow-students near neighbours. It was
a dull and a grimy old place, but it had many conveniences, and was
quite historic as a residence for young medicos,—indeed, it was always
held to be a kind of precinct of the hospital. The landladies were for
the most part elderly widows with no encumbrances; those who had
husbands kept them out of the way, and the students, if they paid up
promptly, did pretty much as they liked in their diggings. It has
often been a subject of wonder what becomes of the husbands of
lodging-house-keeping ladies in the daytime, so seldom do they show
their faces to the lodgers. Perhaps the most plausible suggestion is
that they spend their time hearing the trials in the law courts, or the
police cases. It must be some such persons who are able to devote so
much leisure to these matters.
Mrs. Harper occupied Number 15 in this street of students’ lodgings,
and was one of the oldest and best-known inhabitants. She was a widow,
her late husband having been for twenty years night porter at St.
Bernard’s; and she was sister to the famous Podger. A sharp woman of
business, with a keen eye to the pence, she did well at her business,
and made an excellent income out of the rooms. Her life had been spent
amongst medical men, and not even Podger herself was happier at her
work than Mrs. Harper “doing for her gents,” as she always called it.
Her rooms were decidedly frowzy, and her furniture, which had been
picked up at auctions, and was very mixed, was rather dilapidated. What
wonder, considering the treatment it received from those who used it!
The front parlour, with bedroom at the back, was just now occupied by
Jack Mahoney, a merry little fellow, full of good nature, witty, smart
at learning, and mad for sprees. “He was always up to his tricks,” his
landlady said, but she didn’t mind ’em, not she, not even when he
brought home that steak for his tea, and bade her cook it, and then
laughed till his sides must have split, as he told her what it was, and
where it came from. “And my new frying-pan spoiled as cost me
two-and-ninepence in the Row last week; and as for the plates, and the
knives and forks, I sha’n’t use ’em agen, you may keep ’em, and I shall
put ’em all down in the bill. I wonder when you’ll ever leave off your
tricks; a nice sort of doctor you’ll make! I call it sickening—I do.”
But Harper, like her sister Podger at the hospital, could be settled.
“Hang it all!” cried Mahoney, as he put his feet on the mantel-board,
and roared again, “it’s worth a whole shopful of crockery to have sold
Harper like that. O Jane, sister of the immortal Podger, and you to be
had by a _latissimus dorsi_; you, who declared you knew your anatomy as
well as we did. O Jane! O Jane! you’ll never pass your ‘final,’ not
even in your winding sheet!”
“Go on with your impidence, Mr. Mahoney; it was the new girl as was
had, not _me_; I am too old a bird to be caught a second time. Mr.
Redway served me that trick once, and I never forgave him-well, at
least, not for some time after.”
All this was great fun for Mahoney and his pal Murphy on the other side
of the fireplace, and they laughed consumedly, for they knew the worthy
dame _had_ been sold that time. But a glass of whisky, which she would
not drink before them, but declared she would take the last thing at
night, as a precaution against spasms, soothed her down, and a promise
of a brace of pheasants out of the next hamper of game from home, sent
her to the kitchen in a good humour. She could not be angry with the
boy long together. He paid well, and her sister Podger loved him as her
own son. Her first floor was occupied by two students, Rice and
Higgins. They were both of Mahoney’s set, lively boys all. Sons of
wealthy parents, they had usually money enough to squander; but there
were times when funds sank low, and they were reduced to amazing shifts
to extract the needful amusement which every succeeding night demanded.
The ups and downs of the life they led might serve to prepare them for
the vicissitudes of the future, and to accustom them to the readiness
of resource which is so characteristic of all medical men. To-night
they would be feasting at a West-end restaurant, and drinking costly
brands of champagne; to-morrow, as likely as not, would find them
supping on a few pennyworth of fried fish, and drinking porter out of a
pewter pot. It was all the same to them, even if it were not more
congenial to be associated with rowdies in a Whitechapel bar-room, than
to be dining with their equals in civilised society.
Mrs. Harper, as we said, was not at all particular in the matter of
larks, though she was rather annoyed when she went into Mr. Murphy’s
sitting-room one morning to lay the breakfast, and saw, over the
fireplace in front of her new looking-glass, a great black board,
painted in large white letters, “To be Let or Sold, this desirable
semi-detached Villa Residence. For cards to view, apply Buggins & Son,
113 Great Mowbray Street, E.C.”
She knew at once this was one of the trophies of last night’s spree.
Knockers and bell-handles, brass plates of moderate size, stolen from
milliners’ and dressmakers’ doors—to these there could be no
objection; but sign-boards, barbers’ poles, doctors’ lamps (for even
the profession was not sacred from the attacks of “the boys”), were
“dead agen her rules,” as she was always insisting, because, being so
big, they could hardly be got into the house without exciting
observation, and perhaps might bring discredit on the hospital.
“Look here, Mr. Murphy, I have told you over and over again, I can’t
have them things in my house. You will be caught like Mr. Hodder was
when he stole the big gold coffee pot from over the grocer’s door, and
a bobby as didn’t know him, and wouldn’t take no bribe, run him into
Bow Street, and if he hadn’t been the son of a member of Parliament,
and known to the beak, he’d ’a had to ’a gone to jail, he would; for
the grocer was mortal angry, as he had had two coffee pots and a bell
handle stole the winter before, and he always suspected the students.
No! I draws the line at things like this. I have too much respect for
you, and the character of my house, to harbour the likes of ’em, so
don’t do it.” Not even “a toothful of summat short,” as Murphy phrased
it, could appease the good woman. “No, bell-handles and sich is good
enough sport,” she persisted, “for anybody. I have nothing to say agen
them; you gents must have your larks, and bell-handles and knockers
goes in your pockets, but I draws the line at these here; take it away.
Stay, I’ll put it in the cellar. Why, the taxes, or the gas, or the
water rate might see it, and give information. They’re none of ’em any
too fond of you boys, and they are quite equal to it.” And so with much
regret, Murphy gave up his “Desirable Villa Residence,” merely
extorting a promise that it might appear on the mantel for one night
only—the “trophy supper” he was to give at the end of the winter
session, when he was to exhibit his museum of stolen curiosities to his
companions in the midnight revels.
Murphy was very proud of his museum. He had twenty-nine brass and iron
knockers, fifty-seven bell-handles, fourteen brass door-plates, three
small and very neat Royal Arms, gilt and coloured, one pretty figure of
a Scotchman in Highland costume taking a pinch of snuff, several gilt
carved wood letters, which once formed parts of names over shop doors,
and this latest acquisition, the “Villa Residence” board. Everything
was neatly labelled and numbered, and a register kept, recording in the
most methodical manner the story of its capture. Many hair-breadth
escapes were recalled by a glance at some of these treasures; and to
hear little Jack Murphy tell some of the stories connected with them
was a treat that many a freshman yearned for with all his heart. Most
of the men would rather have had the honour of which this stolen
hardware was the symbol than all the medals and certificates of honour
the hospital could bestow. Their friends sent them to earn these
latter—that was task-work; their own inclination and Bohemian
instincts urged the acquisition of bell-handles and door-knockers—in
this was danger, and their love of surmounting it was gratified. They
had yet to learn the nobler outlets for sentiments that have made the
name of Englishman a proud distinction, especially in the practice of a
profession on which they have shed so much glory.