Читать книгу Disputed Passage - Lloyd C. Douglas - Страница 3

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It was two o’clock in the afternoon of the last Thursday in September, opening day of the fall semester.

The weather was unseasonably sultry, and the air in Doctor Milton (Tubby) Forrester’s lecture-arena lay as inert and stale as the cadavers in the grim old anatomical laboratory adjoining.

But if the atmosphere of the dingy little theater was not refreshingly tonic it was emotionally tense. Whatever it lacked in sweetness it made up in stress; for Anatomy, under the brilliant but irascible Forrester, was reputed to be the stiffest course in the entire four-year curriculum.

Hopeful of being credited at the outset with the flimsy virtue of punctuality, the exceptionally large class of new medical students—one hundred and thirty-three; all men, this year, but eight—had assembled with the nervous promptness of first-time voyagers boarding a ship.

As for the personnel of the class, less than half were newly graduated from the main body of the State University only a mile distant. The rest of them had recently received their degrees—Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science—in colleges of various rating, scattered all the way from the Alleghenies to the Coast. A few of the more gregarious imports had nodded and exchanged casual civilities in the Registrar’s quarters, earlier in the day; but everyone felt himself a stranger in this unfamiliar setting; even the men who had been living for a quadrennium within a ten minutes’ walk of the Medical College campus.

But no matter from how near or far they had come, there wasn’t a person present this afternoon, in Tubby Forrester’s amphitheater, who had not heard the dismaying legends of his impatience, his arrogance, his bad temper, his noisy tantrums. And yet it was largely on account of Tubby that most of them had decided to study medicine here. Tubby was mean as the devil, but he knew his stuff. Not only was he an anatomist of high distinction but a recognized authority on neurological surgery. His office walls were covered with impressive certificates of kudos bestowed by medical schools and renowned scientific societies, tributes embossed on vellum in four languages.

In not many medical colleges did the novice have access to such talented supervision in his early adventures with Anatomy. Tubby maintained that if a man had a natural flair for the subject his gift would show up promptly. He was ever on the alert for budding genius in this field. To his colleagues on the faculty he had confided that he was still on a hunt for potential anatomists who had the makings of neurological surgeons.

The ordinary, run-of-the-mine medical matriculate did not pause to reflect that he might be better off in a school where mediocrity was treated with more patience. The big thing was to earn a diploma bearing Tubby’s distinguished autograph. Even a very small and useless spoon achieved some dignity if the word ‘Sterling’ was stamped on its handle.

But it could not be said that any of the ungifted had been deceived into the error of casting his lot with this great man. Tubby made no bones about the fact that he was interested only in the upper tenth. His attitude toward the large majority of his students was contemptuous and contemptible. His savage sarcasms stung them until their very souls were afire with hate and their eyes burned with defenseless fury. Hundreds of practicing physicians—ranging in age from thirty-five to fifty, and in locale from the Lakes to the Gulf and from Sea to Sea—were proud to be able to say that they had their Anatomy under Forrester, but they invariably added that Tubby was a brute, and many with better memories for the indignities they had suffered at his hands referred to him in terms much more unpleasant than that.

This afternoon, with ample time and a suitable environment for morbid meditation, the new class sat in the steeply ascending semi-circular rows of creaking seats, resting their forearms on the battered desks, scowling at their fidgeting fingers or absently thrumming the corners of their virgin notebooks. Occasionally they lifted an apprehensive glance toward the door leading from Tubby’s office. The early Christian martyrs waiting in the arena for the lions’ cage to open may have had at least the consolation that their impending discomfort would be brief. There would be four years of Tubby Forrester.

Tradition held that the first session with this erratic bully was guaranteed to be a highly interesting entertainment, provided you were not of the dozen or more who would be singled out, stood up on their feet, and given a chance to make or break themselves irrevocably in a preliminary skirmish where it was dangerous to be witty and a disaster to be dull.

Customarily he opened his address by referring to this meeting as ‘The Acquaintance Hour’—a phrase that was expected to fetch a sardonic chuckle, for it was with such verbal lollipops that the University churches and the ‘Y’ angled for new student patronage. Irreverent as Satan, Tubby loved to toy derisively with these ingratiating clichés of organized altruism. But by the end of ‘The Acquaintance Hour’ all the subtlety of his mockeries would have been abandoned, and you would have had a taste of the real thing you had let yourself in for when you signed up for Anatomy under Forrester.

‘If you have to be petted and patted,’ he would growl, ‘join the Glad-handers’ Club, or the Back-slappers, or the Well-wishers. If you find that your system demands more sugar, there are plenty of institutions in this locality where you may have it for much less than the asking. They will teach you how to be as friendly as a wet dog. Tea will be served, songs will be sung, charades will be played. If you want your boots licked, they will do it for you. But don’t expect any of that nonsense here! This edifice has been dedicated to Science. Here we strive to be precise in our research; honest in our nomenclature. If you are a jackass you will have to go elsewhere to be deceived into the belief that you are a zebra.’

He was entering now from his office. Ten minutes overdue, he marched with jerky-gaited pomposity to the waist-high table that served as his desk. This table, mounted on large rubber-tired casters and topped with a two-inch marble slab, was six feet three in length by three feet wide; and you didn’t have to be a medical student to guess what use was made of it when it wasn’t acting as Tubby’s lectern.

The class brought itself to rigid attention as the steely eyes comprehensively surveyed the well-filled theater. There was no need of building up any dramatic suspense here, but Tubby coolly looked the crowd over for a long moment while with both hands he rhythmically tugged at the platinum watch-chain spread across his ample abdomen, a disquieting gesture that suggested the whetting of a carving-knife.

‘Dear Christian Friends,’ he began, clipping his words. A general grin testified that Tubby was measuring up to the picture of him that everyone had conceived. ‘This,’ said the attitude of the class, ‘is the fellow. No doubt of that. Hard-boiled, all right. A nine-minute egg.’

‘It is indeed a pleasure,’ railed Tubby, ‘to welcome so goodly a number to our Acquaintance Hour. Among those who have preceded you through these charming halls, to take up the arduous activities of the most ancient profession—save one—some may have told you that in this snug little theater, and the more commodious workshop adjacent, we are just one happy family, loving one another all the day long.’ He paused to let this mockery soak in and collect its wages in knowing sniffs and dry chuckles. His penetrating gaze raked the rows, tier by tier; a darting glance that dared you to withhold your tribute to his mordant wit. His attitude was that of a peeved sergeant inspecting a squad with the hope of discovering a loose button.

The pause was alarmingly lengthened. Midway of the top row, Tubby’s sweeping search rested for an instant, carried on to the end of the row, returned to the middle, and concentrated upon a face that was quite unaware of the inquisition. There was a dead silence, but the inattentive one had failed to notice the ominous break in Tubby’s address, apparently unaware that he was under fire.

Presently the sour flippancies were resumed, but they lacked their previous finesse. Tubby was not intentionally pulling his punches but they hadn’t the old steam back of them. Again and again his gaze shot truculently to the center of the top row where it had met that impassive profile. It was a lean, strong, determined face, the features clean-cut as an image on a coin, and as immobile. The lips were in repose but not compressed: they did not denote animosity or disapproval. Had they been primly puckered into an evidence of hostility, Tubby would have been better satisfied. He would give the offended beggar another wallop; give him something to be sore about. But these lips were not registering distaste; not registering anything but unconcern. The deep-set eyes which Tubby had tried vainly to command were vaguely exploring a far corner of the neglected room where a soot-smudged wall met a discolored ceiling. It was obvious that the insufferable fellow either wasn’t listening at all or felt that what he was hearing did not rate his respectful attention.

Tubby’s speech, stridently satirical, scrambled on through the deep mud with heavy boots. Every man in the class—but one—sensed that an impious hand had been laid upon the halter of the professor’s goat, but nobody’s curiosity was urgent enough to risk a craning of the neck. The instinct of self-preservation was very active here, today.

The corrosive ironies continued for a few minutes, but Tubby was tiring of this mood. His tone and tempo changed abruptly. He patted his damp brow with a large white handkerchief, smiled briefly, endeavored to be playful, repeated—as if it were original—the old joke about specialization. ‘If you must specialize,’ he said, ‘go in for Dermatology, for your patients will never get well and they will never die and they will never get you up at night.’ And everybody laughed at this but one man, the obnoxious chap in the top row who—if he had heard a word of this ancient wheeze—was probably saying to himself that it would be impolite to laugh at a joke so weighted with infirmity. Damn the bounder! Tubby couldn’t remember ever having been so befuddled. Again he came to a full stop, changed his gears, lowered his tone, became sincere. He talked of the doctor’s life in unexpected phrases of forthright honesty. Properly viewed, he said, earnestly, it was not an occupation but a vocation, a life-commitment rather than a livelihood, an obsession rather than a profession.

‘You will quickly classify yourselves into the categories where—by native gift and intention—you properly belong. You will do that in the course of your first year. According to our statistics, fifteen per cent of you are so dull and lazy that you will be fired—for the sake of the College, the public, and yourselves. Fifty per cent of you will make passing grades and receive degrees and diplomas. What you lack in talent and skill you may compensate with a pleasant bedside manner. Relying more upon sentimentality than scientific knowlege you may possibly earn twice as much by the administration of sympathy and aspirin as your contemporaries who may be twice as well informed.

‘These two groups will account for sixty-five per cent of you. A quarter of the class will turn out to be better than average students; better than average doctors. You will do your work as well as you can, according to the light that is in you, and you will deserve credit for this fidelity.

‘Of the remaining ten per cent—the top ten per cent—it is conceivable that there might develop something quite promising. Don’t bank on it—but it might happen.

‘I do not know, today, who you are—you of this interesting ten per cent. Perhaps you, yourselves, do not know. I venture a word with you at this time. This counsel is not intended for sluggards, trimmers, time-servers, or potential quacks; nor is it meant for the merely competent, however honest and industrious they may be. I am speaking now to the candidates for rating in the top tenth.’

He glanced up, rather negligently, toward the upper tier, and found himself looking squarely into a pair of ice-blue eyes that might easily have been related to his own. He drew a dry smile, and went on.

‘And it is to be hoped,’ added Tubby—as an after-thought in defining his restricted audience—‘it is to be hoped that no apathetic day-dreamer, who may have sat here in a coma until now, will too optimistically identify himself as a divinely ordained member of this privileged minority.’

It was very quiet. The class felt that Tubby had paid off somebody for inattention. The mystery concerning the professor’s serious disconcertment was now cleared up. Everybody hoped the affair was a closed incident. The constraint had been annoying.

‘You of the top tenth,’ continued Tubby, ‘will very soon become aware of your rating. You will not have to wait until you see your grades at the close of the semester.

‘One of the most frequent mistakes made, in classroom admonitions, is the teacher’s fatuous promise to his disciples that diligent application is a guarantee of the student’s success. It goes without saying, of course, that the student who does his work to the best of his ability has more to show for the time he has spent in school than the sluggard. But the persons who comprise the upper tenth of the class must have much more to offer than mere diligence, however praiseworthy is their honest industry.

‘There is a homely adage, customarily quoted with a smile, which discourages any attempt to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. This is far from funny. It is tragic. In the course of my experience here, I have been an unwilling auditor of classroom work sincerely performed by young men and women who had no natural gifts for this undertaking. Perhaps they might have succeeded brilliantly in some other quest: I do not know. But—no matter how hard they worked—they had no chance of achieving distinction. They were biologically ineligible. It was not their fault; it was their misfortune.

‘In a much smaller number of cases, we have had students who gave early promise of future success, but lacked the courage to invest themselves whole-heartedly in their work. They were good for the hundred-yard dash, but they hadn’t the wind required to do a mile; much less a marathon.

‘Now it might be supposed that my next statement should extol the happy combination of brains and diligence; and these are, indeed, a promising pair of success-factors. But the upper tenth needs something more. The price of diligence is self-discipline. Concentration upon your work necessarily demands a resolute avoidance of time-wasting and distracting frivolity. You are quite aware of that. And it is a mere platitude to say that if you wish to get anywhere in preparing for this profession, you must give yourself utterly to your job.

‘But that is not all. Self-discipline, in the opinion of the moralist, is always worth what it costs. And perhaps there is something to be said in favor of the martyr who, by living a sacrificial, self-controlled life, earns credits negotiable in some other, better world beyond the sky. I am not an authority on that subject. But self-discipline, practiced for the purpose of leaving one free to do one’s chosen work, fails of its performance if one pursues it at the cost of very much fretting and conscious effort.

‘Naturally, there will be occasional days when the collar will gall you. No matter how well you have yourself in hand, there will be times when the animal that is in you clamors for its rights. But if you find yourself in a continuous running fight with your appetites—to the extent that your mind is constantly disturbed—your sacrifices will not justify their expense.

‘This leads me to say that the self-discipline of the upper ten per cent must be—for the most part—effortless and automatic. And it may become so, very quickly, if the claims of your vocation loom larger than the urgency of your physical desires. When the job becomes important enough to warrant your membership in the fortunate ten per cent, the outside distractions will not worry you.’

Tubby’s voice had lowered to a conversational tone. It was almost as if he were having a heart-to-heart with a single individual in the privacy of a confidential interview. The class sat poised, deeply attentive. The silence would have been broken by a pin-drop. The cognitive little eyes drifted to the upper row of the amphitheater. The blondish young athlete who had ruined ‘The Acquaintance Hour’ was leaning far forward in his seat, with his elbows on his knees and his fists supporting a firm chin. His eyes were intent, his lips compressed. Tubby frowned, and continued.

‘Out of this top tenth of the class, almost anything is likely to emerge. One never knows what may come forth from this exclusive group. Sometimes we run along for years, in this Medical College, without observing the rise of a student who promises to make an important contribution. Once in a blue moon, the upper tenth delivers to Medical Science an explorer, a discoverer, a trail-blazer.’

Tubby’s next sentence sent a thrill through the closely integrated audience. You could feel it bang at your heart and magnetize your spine. You not only felt it yourself, but you knew that everybody else—to a degree—was experiencing this sensation.

‘Is there anyone here,’ asked Tubby, impressively, ‘who will tell us—some day—what we want to know about cancer? ... Will one of you—some day—give us a prophylaxis for infantile paralysis? The two important gentlemen who are to perform these feats are—if I may venture the prediction—already born. May I be still more hopeful and hazard the guess that they are already of age? It may be that they are experienced scientists, now on the eve of their discoveries. It may be that they are students in some medical school.’ Tubby paused. The class sat transfixed, welded into one solid chunk. ‘These two men,’ declared Tubby, in a tone so low as to be barely audible—‘these two men may be in this room—now!’

He suddenly booted them out of their hypnosis. He tugged out his watch, shuffled his thick sheaf of registration papers, shifted his stance to the end of the autopsy table. His face lighted a little with a smile that suggested he was going to be funny again. The class straightened its back and drew a long breath, the first long one it had felt the need of for some time. Nobody looked at his neighbor. Nobody wanted anyone else to know how deeply he had been stirred. Tubby had gone at it again in another mood.

‘And now,’ he was saying, ‘to all of you—regardless of your various ratings, regardless of what you are or may become, I charge you that the study and practice of medicine and surgery is a scientific pursuit to be approached with much the same attitude as you might undertake a post-graduate course in Geology. Keep your emotions out of it, and give your brains a chance. The less sentiment you apply to this enterprise, the better will be your workmanship. I have often thought of suggesting to my peers,’ extemporized Tubby, ‘that at least one year’s internship should be spent in a veterinary hospital where the young medical student might pursue his work without the emotional interference of the patient’s family.’

This, thought the weary class, was very good indeed. Tubby gave them all a chance to laugh merrily. Even the face in the upper tier broke into a grin. But it was far, far too late for this young Rip Van Winkle to wake up and take an interest. It wouldn’t do him very much good now. Tubby sniffed and went on.

‘Your present attitude should be that of a researchist seeking exact facts about the construction of the human body. Unquestionably there is a place where it is in order to consider Shakespeare’s apostrophe—“What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving, how express and admirable!” But that place is not the anatomical laboratory. If you are wise, my Christian Friends, you will leave all that to the poets and parsons. It’s their job; not yours. Your business is to study man as a badly made contraption in need of repair. Whether the human animal committed a blunder when—in the course of his evolution—he resolved to stand on his hind legs and face the world in an upright position, is a question I should not presume to discuss in all its phases. Personally, I am just as well satisfied not to be walking on all fours. But when this animal tipped his viscera from horizontal to perpendicular he incurred a flock of disabilities. They begin to show up as soon as he learns to walk.

‘You want to keep it in mind,’ declared Tubby, seriously, ‘that orthodox theology is exactly wrong in its explanation of man’s woes. It wasn’t Adam’s fall that caused the trouble: it was his rise. A dog may become so sycophantic that he will sit up, now and then, for a moment, just to flatter his master by imitation; but he has sense enough not to do it very often or for very long. According to the Bible, Eve was sentenced to bear her young in pain because she plucked an apple from a tree, in disobedience to a divine command. Had she been content to munch the apples that had fallen on the ground, she could have borne her cubs without risk and without help.

‘All this places you in an indefensible position as a student. Your whole training is for the purpose of fitting you to promote the cause of civilization. And the more civilization we achieve, the poorer we are, physically. Civilization has given us many benefits, no doubt; it has also developed habits that have produced defective teeth, defective eyes, ears, noses, bronchia. We still have a few of the old glands that were of earlier value; now a menace. May I repeat—you are to study man as a poorly made machine that can’t even support its own weight for very long at a time, in testimony whereof you are all sitting down to ease your freight at age twenty-three. By the time you’re sixty-three, solicitous relatives will be following you about with a chair. You will still have a few years to spend here, perhaps. During the course of your career you may have become wise, noble, renowned. You will also have had your tonsils removed, and your appendix; perchance a kidney. You will be wearing artificial teeth and glasses and maybe a gadget to aid your hearing.... I want you to go into the anatomical laboratory with the understanding that a great many of the things you find out are not as they ought to be. The vital organs were originally intended to function in another position. Forget all this prattle about man being made in the image of God. If it’s true, it’s no credit to him. Anybody who wants to believe in that sort of thing had better keep out of the dissecting room.

‘But—and this should cheer your hearts—while this anatomical laboratory, to which you are shortly to be introduced, is no place to look for fragrance or faith or fairy-stories, it is at least honest, which can’t be said of legislative halls or art galleries or cathedrals. You are here in quest of truth. Once a fact is amply attested you are to accept it, no matter how ugly it is; no matter how much you wish it wasn’t so; no matter how violently it collides with what you have previously thought and would still prefer to think. And don’t make the mistake of imagining that the testimony is all in, and on file. Many a scientist, six feet underground, would suffer all the agonies of the supposedly damned if he could come forth today and read some of his own dogmatic remarks, long since reduced to utter nonsense by new findings. Remember that until a theory has been disproved—no matter how fantastic it may appear in the light of our current knowledge—it should be accorded the respect due to a proposition that might be proved—sometime.’

Tubby closed this sentence in an impressive tone that signified he had said about everything. He looked up, and consulted the face that had annoyed him. The eyes were wide with interest. They were intensely aware and deeply thoughtful. Tubby didn’t care what they thought. He disliked them. The fellow needed a trimming. Tossing open a huge portfolio of papers on the autopsy table, the professor—with a flash-back to the earlier mood of studied mockery—drawled, ‘Now—with your patient indulgence, we will call the roll. On this occasion you will stand when your name is spoken, so that I may identify you, and also that you—for purpose of acquaintance—may identify one another....

‘John Wesley Beaven.... Kindly arise, John Wesley, wherever you are, and let the congregation see you.’

There was a stir in the top row. Amused faces, at all angles, turned in that direction. Seats squeaked and shoes scraped. Everybody was eager to see how a stranger might react to this kind of teasing.

A tall, handsome, Viking sort of fellow had risen and stood waiting whatever discourtesies the Medical College had to offer at the hands of its witty anatomist. Tubby’s little eyes gleamed with satisfaction. He moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue while he deliberated the best technique of punishment for the bounder who had given him such a bad hour. Painstakingly polishing his pince-nez, he consulted the carbon copy of Beaven’s registration form.

‘I observe, John Wesley, that the first college you attended—where you spent your freshman and sophomore years—is a righteous little institution engaged chiefly in the manufacture and disbursement of Methodist preachers. That fact, coupled with your name, leads me to suspect that you have come to us from a pious home. We will endeavor to be on our guard against the use of any objectionable language in your presence.’ Tubby waited for snickers, but apparently the class was hopeful of seeing a sentiment develop in favor of the mercy which almost any one of them might need before the hour was over.

‘Thank you, sir,’ responded Beaven, respectfully. The class smiled wanly. It was evident that Tubby’s effort to enlist scorn for the six-foot, one-hundred-and-ninety pound newcomer as a tenderly nourished plant had not been an entire success. He would dig a little deeper.

‘I assume, John Wesley, that you have thought a great deal about souls. There’s a standing prize here for any dissection that reveals the former presence of a soul—or any need of a soul to operate the complicated machinery of the human body. Perhaps you might like to go in for it.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Beaven, unruffled. ‘How much is it, sir?’

Tubby wasn’t quite ready with a reply to that, and the class laughed merrily, hoping that Beaven’s counter-query would be accepted in fun.

‘I think we can safely sign the check, Mr. Beaven, and let you fill in your own figures.... Now—as a son of the true faith, you doubtless believe in the resurrection of the body. Do you feel that it is very good cricket for you to put your so-called God to the inconvenience of reassembling the bodies you expect to hack into bits in our charnel-house?’

Beaven drew a boyishly unaffected smile that spread over the room like a contagion.

‘The final mobilization isn’t my job, sir,’ he replied. ‘I suppose that whoever is in charge of it will just have to take them the way he finds them.’

The class enjoyed this very much, and shifted amused glances back to the pit.

‘Doubtless,’ said Tubby, dryly. ‘Perhaps if you had taken time to formulate a more clever reply you would have observed that if God could create them, he should have no trouble re-creating them.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ agreed John Wesley. The class grinned again, but a bit apprehensively. This good-looking beggar had better mind his step, for Tubby was getting sore.

‘But you do believe, do you not, Mr.—er’—Tubby leaned over his papers to recover the name—‘Beaven, that on the last day the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible?’

‘Well, sir,’ answered Beaven, after a little delay, ‘one must be open-minded. The theory is rather fantastic, but—it hasn’t been disproved yet.’

This brought a general ripple of friendly—albeit somewhat nervous—laughter. They all rejoiced in Beaven’s courage, though something warned them that it was sheer foolhardiness. Tubby pretended to smile with tight lips.

‘I can see, Brother Beaven, that you believe it. That should be of great assistance to you in your anatomical research. There will be occasions, on warm days, when you may find comfort in the thought that—eventually—bodies do become incorruptible.’

The class thought this mildly witty, and chuckled a little. Thus encouraged, Tubby regained all of the old arrogance, fixed a scornful gaze on his victim, and proceeded with the flogging.

‘When you write home to your pastor, I presume you will inform him that you have fallen into a hell-hole of atheism.’

Young Beaven accepted this good-humoredly.

‘He wouldn’t be surprised.’

‘Nor care?’ pressed Tubby.

‘Probably not.’

‘Not interested in protecting the true faith?’ Tubby’s widened eyes simulated outraged piety.

‘Well—not interested in any discussion of Theology that came from a Professor of Anatomy.’

The class gasped involuntarily. The fellow was committing suicide.

Tubby lowered his head until his jowls overlapped his collar. His little eyes were metallic.

‘I suppose you are inferring that a Professor of Anatomy isn’t qualified to think or talk about anything else but pickled corpses.’

There was a little pause before Beaven replied, very respectfully, very humbly, ‘I was not inferring anything sir.’

Without an instant’s delay, Tubby leaped into this trap.

‘Oh! Well! Now!’ he barked. ‘Now we are getting somewhere! You would like to take that back, eh? Very prudent of you.’

‘Perhaps you misunderstood me, sir,’ said Beaven, carefully picking his words. ‘I was not inferring. I was implying. I imply. You infer. Is that not correct, sir?’

So, now, Beaven had finally disposed of himself. If all the reports about Tubby as a grudge-carrier were even approximately true, Beaven would never live long enough to be forgiven for this unnecessary insult.

‘Thank you, Brother Beaven,’ commented Tubby, with mock deference. ‘Perhaps you would do better if you stuck to your Rhetoric. You may find Anatomy difficult. We shall see. You may sit down now, please.’

He hooked on his glasses with nervous fingers, and fussed with his papers. The class scowled. The next name was called perfunctorily amid much restlessness. Everybody, including Tubby, seemed eager to be done with it. On a couple of occasions there was a brief but futile effort to introduce some mild pleasantry, but the response was feeble and barely polite.

‘That is all,’ said Tubby, gruffly.

He gathered up his papers, thrust them untidily into the big portfolio, and stalked stiffly out of the room. Nobody moved until the office-door had slammed. Then a surly sibilant escaped, like jets of steam, in various quarters of the room; perhaps an involuntary hiss, perhaps the symbol of a rough epithet. Tubby Forrester had got off on the wrong foot with his new class of medics. From his behavior it was evident that no one was more aware of it than himself.

They slowly came to their feet, hitched up their trousers, clattered down the steps, and funneled through the hall-door, mostly avoiding one another’s eyes. Every face recorded dissatisfaction. Anatomy was going to be tough. Tubby, at his best, was mean as dirt. Now he had special reasons for being testy and relentless. He would probably try to save his face by punishing the whole outfit.

Nobody—not even the men who had sat adjacent to him—felicitated Beaven on his audacity. Two or three, for sheer humanity’s sake, grinned amiably, and one chap winked at him, a wooden wink copied from the dummy on the knee of a ventriloquist. But almost everyone was intent upon his own departure. There was an unexpressed but perceptible sentiment to the effect that Beaven was partly to blame for this unhappy situation. Tubby had had it coming to him, no doubt; but Beaven would have done better to swallow his nasty medicine without any attempt at retaliation. His replies to Tubby’s impudence were clever enough, but the class seemed to feel that Beaven would have been much more clever if he had kept his mouth shut.

And Jack Beaven himself now shared this belief. He felt suddenly outcast. For years he had been looking forward with keen interest to his medical course. Part of the pleasure he would derive from his associations with other young fellows intent upon the same work. Now he had made things difficult for himself—and them. He had made a bad start. He was sorry.

In the lower corridor, two girls stood talking; possibly waiting for another. Jack identified them as members of the class. The pretty brunette he remembered specially because she had stirred a bit of welcome entertainment at the roll-call. Tubby had called the name, ‘W. Gillette,’ adding, ‘And if the “W” should happen to stand for “William,” we may anticipate some skillful deductions at his hands.’ Then this girl had risen, and everybody was amused. And she had carried it off very well, too; hadn’t seemed a bit embarrassed.

‘The “W,”’ observed Tubby, when the ripple of laughter had subsided, ‘probably stands for something else.’ He was still glum, but trying hard to be amiable.

‘My name is Winifred, Doctor Forrester,’ she had replied easily.

‘Are you intending to put “W. Gillette, M.D.” on your office-door?’ asked Tubby.

Everybody was very quiet. W. Gillette was not hard to look at, and she had all the poise in the world. Indeed, if she had had any more poise it might easily have been mistaken for brass.

‘I haven’t decided, sir. Perhaps you will advise me, when the time comes.’

This had brought forth a little patter of discreet applause during which Miss Gillette had resumed her seat. There was no further comment from Tubby, who apparently felt that the enlivening episode had come to a satisfactory conclusion. The fragile smile, with which he had regarded this incident, quickly faded.

The Gillette girl was going to be popular. Jack glanced at her and the less physically opulent Miss Reeves as he reached the bottom of the stairs, and they gave him a comradely grin. He did not pause to speak. There wasn’t much to be said. He felt that they would be better served if they did not too conspicuously espouse his cause.

After he had passed through the outer door into the mellow September sunshine, he heard his name spoken, and a patter of heels. He paused to find the girl at his elbow. She was smiling, and her dimples were very attractive.

‘Please don’t give it another thought,’ she said, in the tone of a long-time friend. ‘He’ll forget all about it by tomorrow. Everybody is with you.’

‘Thanks,’ said Jack, warmly. ‘Did I look like a lost dog?’

‘Just a little. But—I suppose we’re all going to feel that way until we get acquainted.... Good-bye,’ she said, with her lips rather than her voice. Winifred flashed him another smile of loyalty, and turned to rejoin the Reeves person who had overtaken them.

‘Good-bye,’ said Jack, ‘and thanks, again.’

The friendly overture momentarily brightened his spirits. It also perplexed him slightly. Perhaps the Gillette girl’s audacity was prompted by an impulsive wish to cheer him up. She had indicated that she, too, was lonesome. Was that a bid for some social attention? Maybe not. At least she was entitled to the benefit of the doubt. He hoped he hadn’t seemed to lack appreciation of her cordiality. He rather wished he had been a little more gracious. Mightn’t he have said, ‘I’ll be seeing you’—or something like that—instead of an unadorned ‘Good-bye’?

Tubby’s stirring remarks about self-discipline, as an imperative of success in the medical profession, had made an impression. Jack had not contemplated any personal resolutions; had been so sore over Tubby’s insolence, and the wrangle they had had, that the thought of acting on the brute’s advice—or even of considering it seriously—was distasteful. He realized, now, that Tubby’s stern counsel on this subject had gripped him. The first evidence of it was the indifference he had manifested toward the girl. At the moment he could not define his reason for failing to do his part toward the promotion of their acquaintance. Tubby’s command was at the bottom of it. Tubby had laid down the simple but savage rules for the governance of ‘the top ten per cent.’ Not only were they to practice a severe self-discipline, but were to commit themselves to it with such devotion that presently it wouldn’t hurt, any more. It would become automatic.

There might be an element of truth in this. Perhaps old Tubby knew. He was a bachelor, reputed to be a glutton for work; probably had himself bridled and saddled; drove himself with spurs and a curb-bit. The earnestness—the solemnity—with which he had talked about self-discipline couldn’t have been a mere theory with him. He had laid it on to the potential top ten per cent of the new class as if he were extending them monastic vows.

The appeal was quite thrilling. Perhaps it was worth an honest trial. And if you were going to experiment with it, a good time and place to begin was now and here. The longer you postponed it, the less likely you would be to make the adventure. Jack walked briskly to the street, sensing a curious state of maturity suddenly arrived at. He wished someone else than Tubby had provided the idea. It was an odd sensation to be so deeply moved by a motive that had been growled at you, a recommendation that had been thrust at you—by a man you had good reasons to despise.

At the next corner, a big fellow waited, grinned, extended a hand; said his name was Wollason.

‘You know mine,’ drawled Jack, with a rather bitter smile. ‘Tubby kicked it around a-plenty.’ They shook hands from the same height and fell into step.

‘You sure trimmed our sassy little Pekinese down to the hide,’ laughed Wollason. ‘But he can still chew the pants right off o’ you.’

Jack nodded, and said he supposed so. Then his steps slowed and he quizzically inspected his new friend’s face.

‘I say, Wollason, don’t we know each other? Aren’t you Tony Wollason?’

‘Sure! I was just waiting to see if you would remember. I had a little advantage of you. While Tubby was reciting your college background, and making fun of your school, I was looking you over.’

‘It’s all coming back now,’ said Jack. ‘You were at left half for Ashburn when I was playing right end with Milford. Sophomores, weren’t we?’

‘Nineteen,’ assisted Tony. ‘The next year I went to Lawrence, and—you went to Evanston; didn’t you? ... That last game of the season was a pretty fast one, wasn’t it?’

‘You and I ought to know,’ said Jack. ‘We nearly got put in the dog-house for mixing it in the open field. Boy!—what a shiner you gave me!’

‘Yeah—they would have put us out of the game, all right, if the alumni hadn’t protested. It was about the only interesting feature of the day—as I recall it—and the old boys were appreciative. By the way, they never fixed my nose as good as it was before.’

Jack looked at the nose appraisingly.

‘I’ll repair it for you, one of these days, just for practice.’

‘Like hell you will. You’ve done that nose all the damage I’m going to take off of you. Where are you living, Jack? I haven’t found a room yet. Just got in this morning from Chicago. Sat up all night. Saving expenses. I still eat—but not to excess.’

‘You might like it where I am,’ suggested Jack. ‘Rooming-house of long standing. Medics. Smells like it, too. But clean enough. Hard-bitten old lady named Doyle. She had one room left at noon.’

‘How are the beds?’

‘Mine isn’t too bad.’

‘How many lodgers per bathroom?’

‘You’ll be Number Six, I think. How many bathrooms are you accustomed to?’

‘Anybody in the house taking piano lessons?’

‘No piano. No saxophone. No small boy.’

‘No beautiful daughter, pining for friendship?’

‘No daughter, no friendship,’ pursued Jack. ‘No towels, no soap; and, this morning, no hot water. They’re fixing the heater. Want to come and look? It’s only four blocks from here.’

Tony nodded, and at a leisurely pace they proceeded up Hill Street.

‘It’s none of my business,’ said Tony, ‘but what the devil were you trying to do to yourself today? Don’t you know that old Tubby can make things mighty rough for you? They say he has the memory of an elephant when it comes to paying off old scores.’

Jack pleaded guilty with a self-reproachful frown and a shake of the head.

‘You’re quite right, Tony. I was a dreadful ass. Haven’t any excuse to offer. Tumbled into it by accident.’ He hesitated for a moment, and then went on in a tone of confidence. ‘It’s only ten days ago that I was called home by the death of my mother. She was a fine example of the old school, in thought and behavior; uncompromisingly orthodox. I didn’t share her opinions but I respected them for what they meant to her. Today, when Tubby was taking the old traditions for a ride, his smart-alecky manner annoyed me. Under any other circumstances, maybe I might have thought he was witty. I knew I ought to be chortling over his sour jokes, but I couldn’t.’

Tony interposed with a brief proffer of sympathy, and said it was a pity that old Tubby hadn’t known the facts in the case.

‘I suppose that’s what made him mad at me, in the first place,’ continued Jack. ‘And then, when he began taking me for a ride, I bristled up. I’m sorry, now; but he was so damned insolent.’

‘How do you suppose he gets away with that stuff?’ growled Tony.

‘Because he’s a genius.’

Tony shot a quick glance of inquiry, not sure whether this comment was ironical. Jack’s face was honest.

‘I mean it, Tony. Tubby’s the real goods. He’s a genius. Maybe that is the way you can spot a genius. They’re all more or less goofy, unstable, conceited, overbearing——’

‘Oh—you’re thinking about the temperamental artists,’ interrupted Tony. ‘Everybody expects that of the musicians and painters and such-like sissies—the sensitive boys and gals who have to go out and throw up when they see a couple of colors that don’t match. But Tubby’s a scientist.’

‘All the same: scientists have had their weak moments, too. It’s human nature. Even Koch and Pasteur were pretty cocky after so much fuss had been made over them. Remember? And Bigelow’s fame in surgery didn’t prevent him from being mean to his subordinates. Tubby can’t help it. You see——’

Tony snorted his scorn and hoped Jack wasn’t putting Tubby Forrester into the same bracket with Koch and Pasteur.

‘Why not?’ countered Jack. ‘It’s an acknowledged fact that Forrester is one of the most distinguished neurologists of our time. Ask anybody! ... And—that isn’t quite all, Tony. Didn’t you find yourself getting quite a kick out of the sentence or two that Tubby fired off—the only really sincere moment in the whole speech—about self-discipline as the price of success in science?’

Tony chuckled, rather grimly, and said he guessed old Tubby was too damn’ mean to be approached with any temptations to be frivolous.

‘It would be easy enough for that bird,’ he added. ‘Nobody would ever ask Tubby to go out on a binge.’

‘Maybe not—now,’ agreed Jack. ‘But something tells me that Tubby has pursued this program of hard work and no play—all his life. And he’s scouting for candidates who might be eligible to—to——’

‘Yeah—to take the veil,’ sneered Tony. ‘Well—not me! I’ll do my work as well as I can, but I certainly don’t intend to be a hermit.’

Jack’s rejoinder was so tardy that Tony added, ‘And I can’t picture you in that role, either.’

‘No,’ replied Jack, absently, ‘of course not.’

‘Got to have a little fun—as you go along.’

‘Certainly.’ Jack’s tone was moody, preoccupied. He made a little gesture toward the ugly brown house on the right. ‘There,’ he said, ‘it is—such as it is.’

Tony regarded the battered old box with a grin, and remarked that if anybody should decide to renounce the pleasures of the world in behalf of a big idea, this might be an ideal place to locate.

‘I wish you good luck with Tubby,’ he said, as they turned in toward the house. ‘If you can’t get along with him, you may want to take his advice, and specialize in English. The little lesson you gave him was a screamer.’

‘I shouldn’t have done it. It hurt him. I was hitting him below the belt, when I reflected on his scholarship. Nobody should attack him at that point. It might slow him up.’

Tony sniffed.

‘Why the hell should you care—if he was slowed up?’

‘Because’—Jack’s eyes suddenly grew steely—‘I want Tubby to be at his best. He has a brilliant mind—and I want to know what’s in it. I want him to pour it out by the bucketful....’

‘Sounds as if you were planning to be a greasy grind.’

‘I hope it wasn’t a priggish remark. I didn’t intend it so. But—if a man is going in for medicine, at all, he’d better go in deep; hadn’t he? Not much point to one’s preparing to be a mere hand-holder and crooner. If you’re going in for a scientific career, you’d better be a scientist; hadn’t you? If it costs something, you’d better arrange to pay it; shouldn’t you? Tubby’s right—at that point.’

‘You’d better look out,’ chuckled Tony. ‘First thing you know, you’ll be developing into another Tubby; starry bright and mean as hell. See here—I believe you really admire this little pipsqueak!’

‘I admire his mind.’

‘Maybe you should let him know that, pretty soon. And he’ll forgive you.’

‘I’d see myself doing that!’ growled Jack.

‘No—I’m afraid you don’t like him.’

‘Personally—I hate him.’