e never seen an
operation?"
"Never."
"Then this way, please. This is Rutherford's historic bar. A glass of
sherry, please, for this gentleman. You are rather sensitive, are you
not?"
"My nerves are not very strong, I am afraid."
"Hum! Another glass of sherry for this gentleman. We are going to an
operation now, you know."
The novice squared his shoulders and made a gallant attempt to look
unconcerned.
"Nothing very bad--eh?"
"Well, yes--pretty bad."
"An--an amputation?"
"No; it's a bigger affair than that."
"I think--I think they must be expecting me at home."
"There's no sense in funking. If you don't go to-day, you must
to-morrow. Better get it over at once. Feel pretty fit?"
"Oh, yes; all right!" The smile was not a success.
"One more glass of sherry, then. Now come on or we shall be late. I
want you to be well in front."
"Surely that is not necessary."
"Oh, it is far better! What a drove of students! There are plenty of
new men among them. You can tell them easily enough, can't you? If
they were going down to be operated upon themselves, they could not
look whiter."
"I don't think I should look as white."
"Well, I was just the same myself. But the feeling soon wears off.
You see a fellow with a face like plaster, and before the week is out
he is eating his lunch in the dissecting rooms. I'll tell you all
about the case when we get to the theatre."
The students were pouring down the sloping street which led to the
infirmary--each with his little sheaf of note-books in his hand. There
were pale, frightened lads, fresh from the high schools, and callous
old chronics, whose generation had passed on and left them. They swept
in an unbroken, tumultuous stream from the university gate to the
hospital. The figures and gait of the men were young, but there was
little youth in most of their faces. Some looked as if they ate too
little--a few as if they drank too much. Tall and short, tweed-coated
and black, round-shouldered, bespectacled, and slim, they crowded with
clatter of feet and rattle of sticks through the hospital gate. Now
and again they thickened into two lines, as the carriage of a surgeon
of the staff rolled over the cobblestones between.
"There's going to be a crowd at Archer's," whispered the senior man
with suppressed excitement. "It is grand to see him at work. I've
seen him jab all round the aorta until it made me jumpy to watch him.
This
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