[Illustration: T]The morning after the carousal reported in our last
chapter, the parties thereat assisting are dispersed in various parts of
London. Did a modern Asmodeus take a spectator to any elevated point from
which he could overlook the Great Metropolis of Mr. Grant and England just
at this period, when Aurora has not long called the sun, who rises as
surlily as if he had got out of bed the wrong way, he would see Mr. Rapp
ruminating upon things in general whilst seated on some cabbages in Covent
Garden Market; Mr. Jones taking refreshment with a lamplighter and two
cabmen at a promenade coffee-stand near Charing Cross, to whom he is
giving a lecture upon the action of veratria in paralysis, jumbled somehow
or other with frequent asseverations that he shall at all times be happy
to see the aforesaid lamplighter and two cabmen at the hospital or his own
lodgings; Mr. Manhug, with a pocket-handkerchief tied round his head, not
clearly understanding what has become of his latch-key, but rather
imagining that he threw it into a lamp instead of the short pipe which
still remains in the pocket of his pea-jacket, and, moreover, finding
himself close to London Bridge, is taking a gratuitous doze in the cabin
of the Boulogne steam-boat, which he ascertains does not start until eight
o'clock; whilst Mr. Simpson, the new man, with the usual destiny of such
green productions--thirsty, nauseated, and "coming round"--is safely taken
care of in one of the small private unfurnished apartments which are let
by the night on exceedingly moderate terms (an introduction by a policeman
of known respectability being all the reference that is required) in the
immediate neighbourhood of the Bow-street Police-office. Where Mr. Muff
is--it is impossible to form the least idea; he may probably speak for
himself.
The reader will now please to shift the time and place to two o'clock P.M.
in the dissecting-room, which is full of students, comprising three we
have just spoken of, except Mr. Simpson. A message has been received that
the anatomical teacher is unavoidably detained at an important case in
private practice, and cannot meet his class to day. Hereupon there is much
rejoicing amongst the pupils, who gather in a large semicircle round the
fireplace, and devise various amusing methods of passing the time. Some
are for subscribing to buy a set of four-corners, to be played in the
museum when the teachers are not there, and kept out of sight in an old
coffin when they are not wanted. Others vote for getting up sixpenny
sweepstakes, and raffling for them with dice--the winner of each to stand
a pot out of his gains, and add to the goodly array of empty pewters which
already grace the mantelpiece in bright order, with the exception of two
irregulars, one of which Mr. Rapp has squeezed flat to show the power of
his hand; and in the bottom of the other Mr. Manhug has bored a foramen
with a red-hot poker in a laudable attempt to warm the heavy that it
contained. Two or three think they had better adjourn to the nearest slate
table and play a grand pool; and some more vote for tapping the
preparations in the museum, and making the porter of the dissecting-room
intoxicated with the grog manufactured from the proof spirit. The various
arguments are, however, cut short by the entrance of Mr. Muff, who rushes
into the room, followed by Mr. Simpson, and throwing off his macintosh
cape, pitches a large fluttering mass of feathers into the middle of the
circle.
"Halloo, Muff! how are you, my bean--what's up?" is the general
exclamation.
"Oh, here's a lark!" is all Mr. Muff's reply.
"Lark!" cries Mr. Rapp; "you're drunk, Muff--you don't mean to call that a
lark!"
"It's a beautiful patriarchal old hen," returns Mr. Muff, "that I bottled
as she was meandering down the mews; and now I vote we have her for lunch.
Who's game to kill her?"
Various plans are immediately suggested, including cutting her head off,
poisoning her with morphia, or shooting her with a little cannon Mr Rapp
has got in his locker; but at last the majority decide upon hanging her. A
gibbet is speedily prepared, simply consisting of a thigh-bone laid across
two high stools; a piece of whip cord is then noosed round the victim's
neck; and she is launched into eternity, as the newspapers say--Mr. Manhug
attending to pull her legs.
"Depend upon it that's a humane death," remarks Mr. Jones. "I never tried
to strangle a fowl but once, and then I twisted its neck bang off. I know
a capital plan to finish cats though."
"Throw it off--put it up--let's have it," exclaim the circle.
"Well, then; you must get their necks in a slip knot and pull them up to a
key-hole. They can't hurt you, you know, because you are the other side
the door.
"Oh, capital--quite a wrinkle," observes Mr. Muff. "But how do you catch
them first?"
"Put a hamper outside the leads with some valerian in it, and a bit of
cord tied to the lid. If you keep watch, you may bag half-a-dozen in no
time; and strange cats are fair game for everybody,--only some of them are
rum 'uns to bite."
At this moment, a new Scotch pupil, who is lulling himself into the belief
that he is studying anatomy from some sheep's eyes by himself in the
Museum, enters the dissecting-room, and mildly asks the porter "what a
heart is worth?"
"I don't know, sir," shouts Mr. Rapp; "it depends entirely upon what's
trumps;" whereupon the new Scotch pupil retires to his study as if he was
shot, followed by several pieces of cinders and tobacco-pipe,
During the preceding conversation, Mr. Muff cuts down the victim with a
scalpel; and, finding that life has departed, commences to pluck it, and
perform the usual post-mortem abdominal examinations attendant upon such
occasions. Mr. Rapp undertakes to manufacture an extempore spit, from the
rather dilapidated umbrella of the new Scotch pupil, which he has
heedlessly left in the dissecting-room. This being completed, with the
assistance of some wire from the ribs of an old skeleton that had hung in
a corner of the room ever since it was built, the hen is put down to
roast, presenting the most extraordinary specimen of trussing upon record.
Mr. Jones undertakes to buy some butter at a shop behind the hospital; and
Mr. Manhug, not being able to procure any flour, gets some starch from the
cabinet of the lecturer on Materia Medica, and powders it in a mortar
which he borrows from the laboratory.
"To revert to cats," observes Mr. Manhug, as he sets himself before the
fire to superintend the cooking; "it strikes me we could contrive no end
to fun if we each agreed to bring some here one day in carpet-bags. We
could drive in plenty of dogs, and cocks, and hens, out of the back
streets, and then let them all loose together in the dissecting-room."
"With a sprinkling of rats and ferrets," adds Mr. Rapp. "I know a man who
can let us have as many as we want. The skrimmage would be immense, only I
shouldn't much care to stay and see it."
"Oh that's nothing," replies Mr. Muff. "Of course, we must get on the roof
and look at it through the skylights. You may depend upon it, it would be
the finest card we ever played."
How gratifying to every philanthropist must be these proofs of the
elasticity of mind peculiar to a Medical Student! Surrounded by scenes of
the most impressive and deplorable nature--in constant association with
death and contact with disease--his noble spirit, in the ardour of his
search after professional information, still retains its buoyancy and
freshness; and he wreaths with roses the hours which he passes in the
dissecting-room, although the world in general looks upon it as a rather
unlikely locality for those flowers to shed their perfume over!
"By the way, Muff, where did you get to last night after we all cut?"
inquires Mr. Rapp.
"Why, that's what I am rather anxious to find out myself," replies Mr.
Muff; "but I think I can collect tolerably good reminiscences of my
travels."
"Tell us all about it then," cry three or four.
"With pleasure--only let's have in a little more beer; for the heat of the
fire in cooking produces rather too rapid an evaporation of fluids from
the surface of the body."
"Oh, blow your physiology!" says Rapp. "You mean to say you've got a hot
copper--so have I. Send for the precious balm, and then fire away."
And accordingly, when the beer arrives, Mr. Muff proceeds with the recital
of his wanderings.
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