ing his living. Philip
looked at him curiously. He was a jolly boy, not at all shy, but talkative
and with a cheekiness which his father reproved. He was much interested in
his foot.

"It's only for the looks of the thing, you know," he said to Philip. "I
don't find it no trouble."

"Be quiet, Ernie," said his father. "There's too much gas about you."

Philip examined the foot and passed his hand slowly over the shapelessness
of it. He could not understand why the boy felt none of the humiliation
which always oppressed himself. He wondered why he could not take his
deformity with that philosophic indifference. Presently Mr. Jacobs came up
to him. The boy was sitting on the edge of a couch, the surgeon and Philip
stood on each side of him; and in a semi-circle, crowding round, were
students. With accustomed brilliancy Jacobs gave a graphic little
discourse upon the club-foot: he spoke of its varieties and of the forms
which followed upon different anatomical conditions.

"I suppose you've got talipes equinus?" he said, turning suddenly to
Philip.

"Yes."

Philip felt the eyes of his fellow-students rest on him, and he cursed
himself because he could not help blushing. He felt the sweat start up in
the palms of his hands. The surgeon spoke with the fluency due to long
practice and with the admirable perspicacity which distinguished him. He
was tremendously interested in his profession. But Philip did not listen.
He was only wishing that the fellow would get done quickly. Suddenly he
realised that Jacobs was addressing him.

"You don't mind taking off your sock for a moment, Carey?"

Philip felt a shudder pass through him. He had an impulse to tell the
surgeon to go to hell, but he had not the courage to make a scene. He
feared his brutal ridicule. He forced himself to appear indifferent.

"Not a bit," he said.

He sat down and unlaced his boot. His fingers were trembling and he
thought he should never untie the knot. He remembered how they had forced
him at school to show his foot, and the misery which had eaten into his
soul.

"He keeps his feet nice and clean, doesn't he?" said Jacobs, in his
rasping, cockney voice.

The attendant students giggled. Philip noticed that the boy whom they were
examining looked down at his foot with eager curiosity. Jacobs took the
foot in his hands and said:

"Yes, that's what I thought. I see you've had an operation. When you were
a child, I suppose?"

He went on with h