way, and mind the whitewash."

They passed under an archway and down a long, stone-flagged corridor,
with drab-coloured doors on either side, each marked with a number.
Some of them were ajar, and the novice glanced into them with tingling
nerves. He was reassured to catch a glimpse of cheery fires, lines of
white-counterpaned beds, and a profusion of coloured texts upon the
wall. The corridor opened upon a small hall, with a fringe of poorly
clad people seated all round upon benches. A young man, with a pair of
scissors stuck like a flower in his buttonhole and a note-book in his
hand, was passing from one to the other, whispering and writing.

"Anything good?" asked the third year's man.

"You should have been here yesterday," said the out-patient clerk,
glancing up. "We had a regular field day. A popliteal aneurism, a
Colles' fracture, a spina bifida, a tropical abscess, and an
elephantiasis. How's that for a single haul?"

"I'm sorry I missed it. But they'll come again, I suppose. What's up
with the old gentleman?"

A broken workman was sitting in the shadow, rocking himself slowly to
and fro, and groaning. A woman beside him was trying to console him,
patting his shoulder with a hand which was spotted over with curious
little white blisters.

"It's a fine carbuncle," said the clerk, with the air of a connoisseur
who describes his orchids to one who can appreciate them. "It's on his
back and the passage is draughty, so we must not look at it, must we,
daddy? Pemphigus," he added carelessly, pointing to the woman's
disfigured hands. "Would you care to stop and take out a metacarpal?"

"No, thank you. We are due at Archer's. Come on!" and they rejoined
the throng which was hurrying to the theatre of the famous surgeon.

The tiers of horseshoe benches rising from the floor to the ceiling
were already packed, and the novice as he entered saw vague curving
lines of faces in front of him, and heard the deep buzz of a hundred
voices, and sounds of laughter from somewhere up above him. His
companion spied an opening on the second bench, and they both squeezed
into it.

"This is grand!" the senior man whispered. "You'll have a rare view of
it all."

Only a single row of heads intervened between them and the operating
table. It was of unpainted deal, plain, strong, and scrupulously
clean. A sheet of brown water-proofing covered half of it, and beneath
stood a large tin tray full of sawdust. On