AN APT PUPIL.
Gentle friends,
Let’s kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;
Let’s carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Now hew him as a carcass fit for hounds.
—_Shakespeare._
I hold that we should only affect compassion, and carefully avoid
having any; it is a passion that is perfectly useless in a
well-constituted mind, serving but to weaken the heart, and being
only fit for common people, who, never acting by the rules of
reason, are in want of passions to stimulate them to action.—_La
Rochefoucauld._
Walter Mole was assistant to Mr. Crowe in his laboratory. He was twenty
two years of age when he entered St. Bernard’s. He was the youngest son
of a speculative builder in the West of England, who having made a
fortune by erecting many streets of stucco-fronted villa residences
(built on ground the gravel of which he had dug out and sold and
replaced with the contents of the dust-bins of the town), was ambitious
to settle his sons in life in the learned professions. He tried hard to
make his eldest a clergyman, but as he lacked the ability even to
conceal his evil habits, he sank back to the gutter from which it was
impossible to raise him, and followed the entirely congenial calling of
a billiard marker. The aspiring parent still determining to make
capital out of evil and unpleasant things, sent his smart, pushing
little cad of a son Walter to St. Bernard’s, to bring honour to the
family name as a surgeon. Mr. Walter Mole was a very diminutive
specimen of humanity, making up however in conceit, as is often
the case, what he lacked in inches. Mr. Mole was a young man of
aspirations. Sharp at his books, he had done so well at the cheap
boarding school where he had got his education, that he had no
difficulty in passing the examination in arts required by the very
moderate ideas of the Apothecaries’ Society of London. By industry and
a plodding perseverance, combined with an intense desire to elevate
himself in the social ladder, he ingratiated himself in the favour of
the Professor of Anatomy, who made him a “demonstrator,” a kind of
anatomical pupil teacher. He won the scholarship in anatomy and
physiology; by constant practice he acquired a nice dexterity with his
fingers, and his dissections were so accurate and careful that many of
them were honoured with places in the college museum. Now Mr. Mole,
although popular with the lecturers, was detested by the men. He was,
in the first place, not a gentleman; everything he said or did
proclaimed him “Cad.” His oily hair, and still more oily tongue; his
dirty finger-nails and dirtier ideas; his paper collars and imitation
jewellery; his low money-grubbing propensities; his scheming cunning to
win the favour of those who could help him, and his insolent contempt
of those whom he considered to be beneath him in position, made him
detested by the men of the school who were unfortunate enough to have
to associate with him. To thrash him was of no use. Who could fight
such a contemptible object? So all sorts of tricks were played upon
him, which he resented in his own way; and as he had much influence
with the authorities, his resentment was not always to be despised. As
he did a good deal of money-lending at exorbitant interest, he was
always able to secure the favour of the very considerable section of
the men who were in his debt. Such a man can always hold his own, and
Mr. Mole held his at St. Bernard’s, and was not to be put down. If
popular dislike could exterminate—say—toads, how few would be left!
And as toads must have some use in the economy of nature, there is no
knowing what disarrangements of her plans their disappearance might
effect. There was possibly some use for Mr. Mole, or “Molly Cular,” as
he was usually called. He acquired this epithet from a mispronunciation
in his early days at the hospital of the term “molecular,” and the
nickname stuck to him even when he became house surgeon. His eye was as
quick as his hands were dexterous, and as Jack Murphy used to say,
“Mole was cut out for a pick-pocket, but spoiled in the making.” When
assisting the lecturers he never failed to detect the larking student
who was causing all the uproar, and many were the men who lost marks
and favour by the watchful supervision of Demonstrator Mole. His
sensitiveness to ridicule served to improve his taste, and he gradually
acquired correctness of pronunciation and much general knowledge from
sheer dread of the suffering he would have to undergo if caught in the
slightest mistake. He had endured so much for dropping his h’s that he
fell into the opposite error of a too liberal use of the aspirate. He
so economized the truth that he never used it unnecessarily, and was as
sparing of it as of his money, though probably not for the same
reasons. Of course he scoffed at religion as something beneath the
notice of an advanced scientist, and was never more in his element than
when shocking some pious pupil by a coarse joke twisted out of Biblical
language, or a metaphor which was perverted from a sacred subject. His
familiarity with Holy Writ enabled him to shock a great many good
people, and amuse some evil ones; but even they were few, as it is
rightly considered the mark of a vulgar mind to make fun of any man’s
faith. This habit ultimately caused complaints to be made of him to the
college board, and he was cautioned that he must abandon it if he
expected advancement. Hating religion, which was a constant rebuke to
all he loved best, he threw himself with renewed zest into the pursuit
of science, which was too cold to reproach him with anything, and he
determined to win respect for services rendered to physiology which he
could scarcely hope could be conceded for anything else within his
reach. He was not loved; he determined to be respected. Soon he found
his opportunity. A skilful and patient worker at the microscope, he
earned much favour and profit from Mr. Crowe by his admirable
pathological work. Many thousands of beautiful sections and other
objects in the microscope room were the result of Mr. Mole’s deft
labours in this direction. He became indispensable in the physiological
room, and the constant attendant on the researches of his master. There
was a common sentiment which drew these men together. Both feeling that
the world did not love them for themselves sought to compel admiration
for their achievements. Both were essentially cruel at heart; both
would not only have gladly botanized on their mother’s graves to
discover anything to win them credit, but would have learned with
pleasure anything they could from the sufferings of their dearest
relations. Mr. Mole took care that his chief never ran short of dogs,
rabbits, guinea pigs, mice, or frogs, for use at the tables and
troughs. To show his devotion to this work he even gave up a worn-out
retriever which had saved his life a few years before by arousing him
from sleep when his chamber was on fire. What greater proof of devotion
to one’s work could be demanded than this? But he would have done even
more to win favour with Mr. Crowe. Had he not been introduced by him
with high encomiums to several learned medical societies, and had not
his early attempts at writing for the scientific journals been aided by
his counsel? Such a friend was worth a dog or two. He laboured at
first, above all things, to win Mr. Crowe’s favour; then, as the work
began to be familiar, he embraced it with an ever-increasing love. It
did not give Mr. Mole much difficulty to rid himself of the outside
prejudice against causing needless suffering to sentient beings, though
when he first began, it was not with the “true spirit of the artist”
that he approached his work. But this came in time, and now not alone
on Mr. Crowe’s account, but for its own sake, this laboratory business
took hold of every fibre of his being. He revelled in it; he spent in
it his nights as well as his days. His Sundays were specially devoted
to the more private, revolting, and awful exercises which Mr. Crowe
would only share with priests of the inner temple of science. Here one
vied with another who could do the most startling things, who could
invent newer forms of torture.