, so that, although altogether
unpractised, I was not ignorant of the proper mode of procedure. The
people looked on with breathless interest. When I had completed the
operation, I saw my father looking over the shoulders of the people with
an expression of unutterable surprise not unmingled with amusement. I
blushed deeply, and began some sort of explanation, which, however, he
cut short by observing in an off-hand manner, that the thing had been
done very well, and the child had better be carried into my bedroom and
left there to rest for some time. He thus got the people out of the
surgery, and then, when we were alone, told me that I was a born
surgeon, that he could not have done it much better himself, and, in
short, praised me to such an extent that I felt quite proud of my
performance."

Queeker, who had listened up to this point with breathless attention,
suddenly said--

"D'you mean to say that you _really_ did that?"

"I do," replied Stanley with an amused smile.

"Sewed up a mouth cut all the way to the ear?"

"Yes."

"With a--a--"

"With a needle and thread," said Stanley.

Queeker's powers of utterance were paralysed. He looked at the young
doctor with a species of awe-stricken admiration. Jealousy, for the
time, was in abeyance.

"This, then, was the beginning of your love for the profession?" said
Mr Durant.

"Undoubtedly it was, but a subsequent event confirmed me in my devotion
to it, and induced me to give up all thoughts of the sea. The praise
that I had received from my father--who was not usually lavish of
complimentary remarks--made me ambitious to excel in other departments
of surgery, so I fixed upon the extraction of teeth as my next step in
the profession. My father had a pretty large practice in that way. We
lived, as you remember, in the midst of a populous rural district, and
had frequent visits from farm servants and labourers with heads tied up
and lugubrious faces.

"I began to fit myself for duty by hammering big nails into a block of
wood, and drawing them out again. This was a device of my own, for I
wished to give my father another surprise, and did not wish to betray
what I was about, by asking his advice as to how I should proceed. I
then extracted the teeth from the jaw-bones of all the sheep's-heads
that I could lay hands on; after a good deal of practice in this way, I
tried to tempt our cook with an offer of five shillings to let me
extract a back too