CARBOLIC!
"Holloa, Jones! going home?"
"I am going to lunch; I may be back in the afternoon."
"Please yourself, my dear fellow, but if you don't finish that axilla
to-day, I shall be under the painful necessity of reflecting the
pectorals, and proceeding with the thorax, at 9 A.M. to-morrow."
"Oh, I say, Dudley, that is too bad."
"I fail to see it. You have had one day too long as it is."
"But you know I did cut my finger."
"H'm. I have not just the profoundest faith in that cut finger. You
know it _did_ happen on the day of the football-match."
The boy laughed. "And Collett will never manage that sole of the
foot without you," he said.
"Collett must." Dudley smiled up at the eager face that was bending
over his dissection. "I only undertook to find the cutaneous branch
of the internal plantar," and he lifted the nerve affectionately on
the handle of his scalpel. "Come, Jones, fire away. _Ce n'est pas
la mer à boire_. Half an hour will do it."
"Oh, I say! It would take me four hours. You know, Dudley, there is
such a lot of reading on the axilla. I am all in a muddle as it is.
I'll sit up half the night reading it, if you will give me another
day."
"Very sorry, old man. _Ars longa_. I must get on with my thorax.
It will do you far more good to read in the dissecting-room.
Preconceived ideas are a mistake. Get a good lunch, and come back.
That's your scalpel, I think, Collett."
"Oh, bother! I only wish I had ideas of any kind! I wish to
goodness somebody would demonstrate the whole thing to me, and finish
the dissection as he goes along!"
"I will do that with pleasure, if you like, to-morrow. The gain will
be mine--and perhaps it will be the best thing you can do now. But
don't play that little game too often, if you mean to be an
anatomist."
"I don't," cried the boy vehemently. "I wish to heaven I need never
see this filthy old hole again!"
Dudley glanced round the fine airy room, as he stood with his hands
under the tap.
"I know that feeling well," he said.
"You, Dudley! Why, somebody said the other day that the very dust of
the dissecting-room was dear to you."
"So it is, I think," said Ralph, smiling. "But it was very different
in the days when I stroked the nettle in the gingerly fashion you are
doing now."
"You mean that you think I should like it better if I really tucked
into it," said the boy ruefully.
"I don't think at all; I know. 9 A.M. to-morrow sharp, then."
Dudley stepped out briskly into the raw damp air. The mud was thick
under foot, and the whole aspect of the world was depressing to the
hard-worked student. One by one the familiar furrows took possession
of his brow, and his step slackened gradually, till it kept pace with
the dead march of his thoughts. He was within a stone's-throw of his
rooms, when a dashing mail-phaeton came up behind him. A good horse
was always a source of pleasure to him, and he noted, point by point,
the beauties of the two fine bays, which, bespattered with foam, were
chafing angrily at the delay caused by some block in the street.
Suddenly Ralph bethought himself of Melville's story about the "irony
of fate," and he glanced with amused curiosity at the occupant of the
carriage.
There was no irony here. The reins lay firmly but easily in the
hands of a man who was well in keeping with the
horses,--fine-looking, of military bearing, with ruddy face, and
curly white hair. He, too, seemed annoyed at the block, for there
was a heavy frown on his brow.
At last the offending cart turned down a side-street, and the bays
dashed on. Immediately in front of them was a swift heavy dray, and
behind it, as is the fashion among gamins, sublimely regardless of
all the dangers of his position, hung a very small boy. The dray
stopped for a moment, then suddenly lumbered on, and before either
Dudley or the driver of the phaeton had noticed the child, he had
fallen from his precarious perch, and lay under the hoofs of the bays.
With one tremendous pull the phaeton was brought to a standstill,
while Dudley and the groom rushed forward to extricate the child.
"I think he is more frightened than hurt," said Ralph, "but my rooms
are close at hand. If you like, I will take him in and examine him
carefully. I am a doctor."
"Upon my soul, I am very much obliged to you! I am leaving town for
the Riviera to-night, and it would be confoundedly awkward to be
detained by a business of this kind. Step up, will you? Charles
will hand up the child after you are in."
The boy lay half stunned, drawing little sobbing breaths. When they
reached the house, Dudley handed the latch-key to his companion, and,
raising the boy in his strong arms, he carried him up the steps.
"Bless me, you are as good as a woman!" said the man of the world, in
amused admiration, as he opened the door. "It was uncommonly lucky
for me that you happened to be passing."
Dudley showed his new acquaintance into his snuggery, while he
examined the boy. The snuggery was a room worth seeing. There was
nothing showy or striking about it, but every picture, every book,
every bit of pottery, had been lovingly and carefully chosen, and the
_tout ensemble_ spoke well for the owner of the room.
"A man of culture clearly," said the visitor, after making a
leisurely survey; "and what a life for him, by Gad!--examining dirty
little _gamins_! He can't be poor. What the deuce does he do it
for?"
"He is all right," said Dudley emphatically, re-entering the room.
"He has been much interested in my manikin, and at the present moment
is tucking vigorously into bread-and-marmalade. I have assured him
that ninety-nine drivers out of a hundred would have gone right over
him. You certainly are to be congratulated on the way you pulled
those horses up."
"Do you think so? I am very glad to hear it. Gad! I thought myself
it was all over with the little chap. The fact is--it is a fine
state of affairs if I can't manage a horse at my time of life; but I
confess my thoughts were pretty far afield at the moment. It is most
annoying. I have taken my berth on the Club Train for this
afternoon, and I find I shall have to go without seeing my niece. I
wrote to make an appointment, but it seems she has left her former
rooms. By the way, you are a doctor. Do you happen to know any of
the lady medical students?"
Dudley shook his head. "I am sorry I have not that honour," he said.
His visitor laughed harshly.
"You don't believe in all that, eh?"
"Oh, I don't say that. I am very far from being conservative on the
subject of women's work. I am inclined on the whole to think that
women have souls, and, that being so, and the age of brute force
being past, it is to my mind a natural corollary that they should
choose their own work."
"I don't see that at all, sir. I don't see that at all," said the
elderly gentleman, throwing himself into a chair, and talking very
warmly. "Souls! What have souls got to do with it, I should like to
know? Can they do it without becoming blunted? That is the
question."
"I confess I think it is a strange life for a woman to choose, but I
know one or two women--one certainly--who would make far better
doctors than I ever shall."
"Oh, they are a necessity! Mind, sir, I believe women-doctors are a
necessity; so it is a mercy they want to do it; but why the devil
should my niece take it up? She is not the sort of woman you mean at
all. To think that a fine-looking, gentle, gifted girl, who might
marry any man she liked, and move in any society she chose, should
spend her days in an atmosphere of--what is the smell in this room,
sir?"
Dudley laughed. "Carbolic, I suppose," he said. "I use a good deal
of it."
"Carbolic! Well, think of a beautiful woman finding it necessary to
live in an atmosphere of--_carbolic_!"
Dudley laughed again, his visitor's voice was so expressive.
"There are minor drawbacks, of course," he said. "But I strongly
agree with you, that there is a part of our work which ought to be in
the hands of women; and I, for one, will gladly hand it over to them."
"I believe you! Oh, when all is said, it's grimy work,
doctoring--grimy work!"
"You know, of course, that I join issue with you there."
"You don't find it so?"
"God forbid!"
"Tell me," said the stranger eagerly, running his eye from Dudley's
cultured face to his long nervous hands, "you ought to know--given a
woman, pure, and good, and strong, could she go through it all
unharmed?"
"Pure, and good, and strong," repeated Dudley reflectively. "Given a
woman like that, you may safely send her through hell itself. I
think the fundamental mistake of our civilisation has been educating
women as if they were all run in one mould. She will get her eyes
opened, of course, if she studies medicine, but some women never
attain the possibilities of their nature in the shadow of convent
walls. Frankly, I have no great fancy for artificially reared
purity."
"Artificially reared!" exclaimed the other. "My dear sir, there are
a few intermediate stages between the hothouse and the dunghill! If
it were only art, or literature, or politics, or even science, but
anatomy--the dissecting-room!"
"Well," said Dudley rather indignantly, his views developing as he
spoke, "even anatomy, like most things, is as you make it. Many men
take possession of a 'little city of sewers,' but I should think a
pure and good woman might chance to find herself in the 'temple of
the Holy Ghost.'"
His visitor was somewhat startled by this forcible language, and he
did not answer for a moment. He seemed to be attentively studying
the pattern of the carpet. Presently he looked full at Dudley, and
spoke somewhat sharply.
"Knowing all you do, you think that possible?"
"Knowing all I do, I think that more than possible."
The man of the world sat for some time in silence, tapping his boot
with a ruler he had taken from the writing-table.
"I'll tell you what I can do for you," said Dudley suddenly. "I can
give you the address of the Women's Medical School. Your niece is
probably there."
"Oh Lord, no! I am a brave man, but I am not equal to that. I would
rather face a tiger in the jungle any day. Well, sir, I am sure I am
infinitely obliged to you. I wish I could ask you to dine at my
club, but I hope I shall see you when I am next in London. That is
my card. Where's the little chap? Look here, my man! There is a
Christmas-box for you, but if you ever get under my horses' feet
again, I will drive right on; do you hear?"
He shook hands cordially with Dudley, slipped a couple of guineas
into his hand, and in another minute the impatient bays were dashing
down the street.
"Sir Douglas Munro," said Dudley, examining the card. "A magnificent
specimen of the fine old Anglo-Indian type. I should like to see
this wonderful niece of his!"