, but there was a wild-cat element
in me which, when roused, made up for lack of weight, and I licked
my adversary effectually. However, one of my first experiences of the
extremely rough-and-ready nature of justice, as exhibited by the course
of things in general, arose out of the fact that I--the victor--had
a black eye, while he--the vanquished--had none, so that I got into
disgrace and he did not. We made it up, and thereafter I was unmolested.
One of the greatest shocks I ever received in my life was to be told
a dozen years afterwards by the groom who brought me my horse in a
stable-yard in Sydney that he was my quondam antagonist. He had a long
story of family misfortune to account for his position, but at that time
it was necessary to deal very cautiously with mysterious strangers in
New South Wales, and on inquiry I found that the unfortunate young man
had not only been "sent out," but had undergone more than one colonial
conviction.

As I grew older, my great desire was to be a mechanical engineer, but
the fates were against this and, while very young, I commenced the study
of medicine under a medical brother-in-law. But, though the Institute
of Mechanical Engineers would certainly not own me, I am not sure that
I have not all along been a sort of mechanical engineer in partibus
infidelium.[6] I am now occasionally horrified to think how very little
I ever knew or cared about medicine as the art of healing. The only
part of my professional course which really and deeply interested me was
physiology, which is the mechanical engineering of living machines; and,
notwithstanding that natural science has been my proper business, I am
afraid there is very little of the genuine naturalist in me. I never
collected anything, and species work was always a burden to me; what I
cared for was the architectural and engineering part of the business,
the working out of the wonderful unity of plan in the thousands and
thousands of diverse living constructions, and the modifications of
similar apparatuses to serve diverse ends. The extraordinary attraction
I felt towards the study of the intricacies of living structure nearly
proved fatal to me at the outset. I was a mere boy--I think between
thirteen and fourteen years of age--when I was taken by some older
student friends of mine to the first post-mortem examination I ever
attended. All my life I have been most unfortunately sensitive to the
disagreeables which attend anatomi