and flung him from his breast. But he was no
nearer to the meaning of life than he had been before. Why the world was
there and what men had come into existence for at all was as inexplicable
as ever. Surely there must be some reason. He thought of Cronshaw's
parable of the Persian carpet. He offered it as a solution of the riddle,
and mysteriously he stated that it was no answer at all unless you found
it out for yourself.

"I wonder what the devil he meant," Philip smiled.

And so, on the last day of September, eager to put into practice all these
new theories of life, Philip, with sixteen hundred pounds and his
club-foot, set out for the second time to London to make his third start
in life.

LIV

The examination Philip had passed before he was articled to a chartered
accountant was sufficient qualification for him to enter a medical school.
He chose St. Luke's because his father had been a student there, and
before the end of the summer session had gone up to London for a day in
order to see the secretary. He got a list of rooms from him, and took
lodgings in a dingy house which had the advantage of being within two
minutes' walk of the hospital.

"You'll have to arrange about a part to dissect," the secretary told him.
"You'd better start on a leg; they generally do; they seem to think it
easier."

Philip found that his first lecture was in anatomy, at eleven, and about
half past ten he limped across the road, and a little nervously made his
way to the Medical School. Just inside the door a number of notices were
pinned up, lists of lectures, football fixtures, and the like; and these
he looked at idly, trying to seem at his ease. Young men and boys dribbled
in and looked for letters in the rack, chatted with one another, and
passed downstairs to the basement, in which was the student's
reading-room. Philip saw several fellows with a desultory, timid look
dawdling around, and surmised that, like himself, they were there for the
first time. When he had exhausted the notices he saw a glass door which
led into what was apparently a museum, and having still twenty minutes to
spare he walked in. It was a collection of pathological specimens.
Presently a boy of about eighteen came up to him.

"I say, are you first year?" he said.

"Yes," answered Philip.

"Where's the lecture room, d'you know? It's getting on for eleven."

"We'd better try to find it."

They walked out of the museum into a long, dark