ved the growth. I
only got a sovereign for it. But it may be a nucleus for cases. The
old fellow did most admirably, and he has just been in (with a most
aristocratic curl to his nostrils) to tell me that he has bought a box
full of churchwardens. It was my first operation, and I daresay I was
more nervous about it than my patient, but the result has given me
confidence. I have fully made up my mind to let nothing pass me. Come
what may, I am prepared to do it. Why should a man wait? Of course,
I know that many men do; but surely one's nerve is more likely to be
strong and one's knowledge fresh now than in twenty years.

Cases came dribbling in from day to day--all very poor people, and able
to pay very poor fees--but still most welcome to me. The first week I
took (including that operation fee) one pound seventeen and sixpence.
The second, I got two pounds exactly. The third, I had two pounds five,
and now I find that this last week has brought in two pounds eighteen;
so I am moving in the right direction. Of course, it compares absurdly
enough with Cullingworth's twenty pound a day, and my little quiet
back-water seems a strange contrast to the noisy stream which pours for
ever through his room. Still, I am quite satisfied, and I have no doubt
at all that his original estimate of three hundred pounds for the first
year will be amply justified. It would be a pleasant thing to think that
if anything were really to happen at home, I should be able to be of
some use to them. If things go on as they have begun, I shall soon have
my feet firmly planted.

I was compelled, by the way, to forego an opening which a few months ago
would have been the very summit of my ambition. You must know (possibly
I told you), that immediately after I passed, I put my name down as a
candidate for a surgeonship on the books of several of the big steamship
lines. It was done as a forlorn hope, for a man has usually to wait
several years before his turn comes round. Well, just a week after I
started here, I got a telegram one night from Liverpool: "Join the Decia
to-morrow as surgeon, not later than eight in the evening." It was from
Staunton & Merivale, the famous South American firm, and the Decia is
a fine 6000-ton passenger boat, doing the round journey by Bahia and
Buenos Ayres to Rio and Valparaiso. I had a bad quarter of an hour, I
can tell you. I don't think I was ever so undecided about anything in my
life. Cullingworth was dead again