escension, which some consultants
achieve as the professional manner. He made the patient feel like a boy
confronted by a jolly schoolmaster; his illness was an absurd piece of
naughtiness which amused rather than irritated.

The student was supposed to attend in the out-patients' room every day,
see cases, and pick up what information he could; but on the days on which
he clerked his duties were a little more definite. At that time the
out-patients' department at St. Luke's consisted of three rooms, leading
into one another, and a large, dark waiting-room with massive pillars of
masonry and long benches. Here the patients waited after having been given
their 'letters' at mid-day; and the long rows of them, bottles and
gallipots in hand, some tattered and dirty, others decent enough, sitting
in the dimness, men and women of all ages, children, gave one an
impression which was weird and horrible. They suggested the grim drawings
of Daumier. All the rooms were painted alike, in salmon-colour with a high
dado of maroon; and there was in them an odour of disinfectants, mingling
as the afternoon wore on with the crude stench of humanity. The first room
was the largest and in the middle of it were a table and an office chair
for the physician; on each side of this were two smaller tables, a little
lower: at one of these sat the house-physician and at the other the clerk
who took the 'book' for the day. This was a large volume in which were
written down the name, age, sex, profession, of the patient and the
diagnosis of his disease.

At half past one the house-physician came in, rang the bell, and told the
porter to send in the old patients. There were always a good many of
these, and it was necessary to get through as many of them as possible
before Dr. Tyrell came at two. The H.P. with whom Philip came in contact
was a dapper little man, excessively conscious of his importance: he
treated the clerks with condescension and patently resented the
familiarity of older students who had been his contemporaries and did not
use him with the respect he felt his present position demanded. He set
about the cases. A clerk helped him. The patients streamed in. The men
came first. Chronic bronchitis, "a nasty 'acking cough," was what they
chiefly suffered from; one went to the H.P. and the other to the clerk,
handing in their letters: if they were going on well the words Rep 14
were written on them, and they went to the dispensary with th