ew
a doctor would tell him to stop drinking, and this he was resolved not to
do. He always felt horribly ill in the morning, but his absinthe at
mid-day put him on his feet again, and by the time he came home, at
midnight, he was able to talk with the brilliancy which had astonished
Philip when first he made his acquaintance. His proofs were corrected; and
the volume was to come out among the publications of the early spring,
when the public might be supposed to have recovered from the avalanche of
Christmas books.

LXXXIV

At the new year Philip became dresser in the surgical out-patients'
department. The work was of the same character as that which he had just
been engaged on, but with the greater directness which surgery has than
medicine; and a larger proportion of the patients suffered from those two
diseases which a supine public allows, in its prudishness, to be spread
broadcast. The assistant-surgeon for whom Philip dressed was called
Jacobs. He was a short, fat man, with an exuberant joviality, a bald head,
and a loud voice; he had a cockney accent, and was generally described by
the students as an 'awful bounder'; but his cleverness, both as a surgeon
and as a teacher, caused some of them to overlook this. He had also a
considerable facetiousness, which he exercised impartially on the patients
and on the students. He took a great pleasure in making his dressers look
foolish. Since they were ignorant, nervous, and could not answer as if he
were their equal, this was not very difficult. He enjoyed his afternoons,
with the home truths he permitted himself, much more than the students who
had to put up with them with a smile. One day a case came up of a boy with
a club-foot. His parents wanted to know whether anything could be done.
Mr. Jacobs turned to Philip.

"You'd better take this case, Carey. It's a subject you ought to know
something about."

Philip flushed, all the more because the surgeon spoke obviously with a
humorous intention, and his brow-beaten dressers laughed obsequiously. It
was in point of fact a subject which Philip, since coming to the hospital,
had studied with anxious attention. He had read everything in the library
which treated of talipes in its various forms. He made the boy take off
his boot and stocking. He was fourteen, with a snub nose, blue eyes, and
a freckled face. His father explained that they wanted something done if
possible, it was such a hindrance to the kid in earn