A SLIP UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
Outside the laboratory windows was a watery-grey fog, and withina close warmth and the yellow light of the green-shaded gas lampsthat stood two to each table down its narrow length. On each tablestood a couple of glass jars containing the mangled vestiges of thecrayfish, mussels, frogs, and guineapigs, upon which the students hadbeen working, and down the side of the room, facing the windows, wereshelves bearing bleached dissections in spirits, surmounted by a rowof beautifully executed anatomical drawings in whitewood frames andoverhanging a row of cubical lockers. All the doors of the laboratorywere panelled with blackboard, and on these were the half-eraseddiagrams of the previous day's work. The laboratory was empty, save forthe demonstrator, who sat near the preparation-room door, and silent,save for a low, continuous murmur, and the clicking of the rockermicrotome at which he was working. But scattered about the room weretraces of numerous students: hand-bags, polished boxes of instruments,in one place a large drawing covered by newspaper, and in another aprettily bound copy of _News from Nowhere_, a book oddly at variancewith its surroundings. These things had been put down hastily as thestudents had arrived and hurried at once to secure their seats in theadjacent lecture theatre. Deadened by the closed door, the measuredaccents of the professor sounded as a featureless muttering.
Presently, faint through the closed windows came the sound of theOratory clock striking the hour of eleven. The clicking of themicrotome ceased, and the demonstrator looked at his watch, rose,thrust his hands into his pockets, and walked slowly down thelaboratory towards the lecture theatre door. He stood listening for amoment, and then his eye fell on the little volume by William Morris.He picked it up, glanced at the title, smiled, opened it, looked at thename on the fly-leaf, ran the leaves through with his hand, and putit down. Almost immediately the even murmur of the lecturer ceased,there was a sudden burst of pencils rattling on the desks in thelecture theatre, a stirring, a scraping of feet, and a number of voicesspeaking together. Then a firm footfall approached the door, whichbegan to open, and stood ajar, as some indistinctly heard questionarrested the new-comer.
The demonstrator turned, walked slowly back past the microtome, andleft the laboratory by the preparation-room door. As he did so,first one, and then several students carrying notebooks entered thelaboratory from the lecture theatre, and distributed themselves amongthe little tables, or stood in a group about the doorway. They were anexceptionally heterogeneous assembly, for while Oxford and Cambridgestill recoil from the blushing prospect of mixed classes, the Collegeof Science anticipated America in the matter years ago--mixed socially,too, for the prestige of the College is high, and its scholarships,free of any age limit, dredge deeper even than do those of the Scotchuniversities. The class numbered one-and-twenty, but some remained inthe theatre questioning the professor, copying the blackboard diagramsbefore they were washed off, or examining the special specimens he hadproduced to illustrate the day's teaching. Of the nine who had comeinto the laboratory three were girls, one of whom, a little fair woman,wearing spectacles and dressed in greyish-green, was peering out ofthe window at the fog, while the other two, both wholesome-looking,plain-faced schoolgirls, unrolled and put on the brown holland apronsthey wore while dissecting. Of the men, two went down the laboratoryto their places, one a pallid, dark-bearded man, who had once beena tailor; the other a pleasant-featured, ruddy young man of twenty,dressed in a well-fitting brown suit; young Wedderburn, the son ofWedderburn the eye specialist. The others formed a little knot nearthe theatre door. One of these, a dwarfed, spectacled figure, witha hunch back, sat on a bent wood stool; two others, one a short,dark youngster, and the other a flaxen-haired, reddish-complexionedyoung man, stood leaning side by side against the slate sink, whilethe fourth stood facing them, and maintained the larger share of theconversation.
This last person was named Hill. He was a sturdily built young fellow,of the same age as Wedderburn; he had a white face, dark grey eyes,hair of an indeterminate colour, and prominent, irregular features.He talked rather louder than was needful, and thrust his hands deeplyinto his pockets. His collar was frayed and blue with the starch of acareless laundress, his clothes were evidently readymade, and therewas a patch on the side of his boot near the toe. And as he talkedor listened to the others, he glanced now and again towards thelecture theatre door. They were discussing the depressing perorationof the lecture they had just heard, the last lecture it was in theintroductory course in zoology. "From ovum to ovum is the goal of thehigher vertebrata," the lecturer had said in his melancholy tones,and so had neatly rounded off the sketch of comparative anatomy hehad been developing. The spectacled hunchback had repeated it, withnoisy appreciation, had tossed it towards the fair-haired student withan evident provocation, and had started one of those vague, ramblingdiscussions on generalities, so unaccountably dear to the student mindall the world over.
"That is our goal, perhaps--I admit it--as far as science goes," saidthe fair-haired student, rising to the challenge. "But there are thingsabove science."
"Science," said Hill confidently, "is systematic knowledge. Ideas thatdon't come into the system--must anyhow--be loose ideas." He was notquite sure whether that was a clever saying or a fatuity until hishearers took it seriously.
"The thing I cannot understand," said the hunchback, at large, "iswhether Hill is a materialist or not."
"There is one thing above matter," said Hill promptly, feeling he hada better thing this time, aware, too, of someone in the doorway behindhim, and raising his voice a trifle for her benefit, "and that is, thedelusion that there is something above matter."
"So we have your gospel at last," said the fair student. "It's alla delusion, is it? All our aspirations to lead something more thandogs' lives, all our work for anything beyond ourselves. But see howinconsistent you are. Your socialism, for instance. Why do you troubleabout the interests of the race? Why do you concern yourself aboutthe beggar in the gutter? Why are you bothering yourself to lend thatbook"--he indicated William Morris by a movement of the head--"toeveryone in the lab.?"
"Girl," said the hunchback indistinctly, and glanced guiltily over hisshoulder.
The girl in brown, with the brown eyes, had come into the laboratory,and stood on the other side of the table behind him, with her rolled-upapron in one hand, looking over her shoulder, listening to thediscussion. She did not notice the hunchback, because she was glancingfrom Hill to his interlocutor. Hill's consciousness of her presencebetrayed itself to her only in his studious ignorance of the fact; butshe understood that, and it pleased her. "I see no reason," said he,"why a man should live like a brute because he knows of nothing beyondmatter, and does not expect to exist a hundred years hence."
"Why shouldn't he?" said the fair-haired student.
"Why _should_ he?" said Hill.
"What inducement has he?"
"That's the way with all you religious people. It's all a business ofinducements. Cannot a man seek after righteousness for righteousness'sake?"
There was a pause. The fair man answered, with a kind of vocal padding,"But--you see--inducement--when I said inducement," to gain time. Andthen the hunchback came to his rescue and inserted a question. He wasa terrible person in the debating society with his questions, and theyinvariably took one form--a demand for a definition. "What's yourdefinition of righteousness?" said the hunchback at this stage.
Hill experienced a sudden loss of complacency at this question,but even as it was asked, relief came in the person of Brooks, thelaboratory attendant, who entered by the preparation-room door,carrying a number of freshly killed guineapigs by their hind legs."This is the last batch of material this session," said the youngster,who had not previously spoken. Brooks advanced up the laboratory,smacking down a couple of guineapigs at each table. The rest of theclass, scenting the prey from afar, came crowding in by the lecturetheatre door, and the discussion perished abruptly as the students whowere not already in their places hurried to them to secure the choi
ceof a specimen. There was a noise of keys rattling on split rings aslockers were opened and dissecting instruments taken out. Hill wasalready standing by his table, and his box of scalpels was sticking outof his pocket. The girl in brown came a step towards him, and, leaningover his table, said softly, "Did you see that I returned your book,Mr. Hill?"
During the whole scene she and the book had been vividly present in hisconsciousness; but he made a clumsy pretence of looking at the book andseeing it for the first time. "Oh yes," he said, taking it up. "I see.Did you like it?"
"I want to ask you some questions about it--some time."
"Certainly," said Hill. "I shall be glad." He stopped awkwardly. "Youliked it?" he said.
"It's a wonderful book. Only some things I don't understand."
Then suddenly the laboratory was hushed by a curious braying noise. Itwas the demonstrator. He was at the blackboard ready to begin the day'sinstruction, and it was his custom to demand silence by a sound midwaybetween the "Er" of common intercourse and the blast of a trumpet. Thegirl in brown slipped back to her place: it was immediately in frontof Hill's, and Hill, forgetting her forthwith, took a notebook out ofthe drawer of his table, turned over its leaves hastily, drew a stumpypencil from his pocket, and prepared to make a copious note of thecoming demonstration. For demonstrations and lectures are the sacredtext of the College students. Books, saving only the Professor's own,you may--it is even expedient to--ignore.
* * * * *
Hill was the son of a Landport cobbler, and had been hooked by a chanceblue paper the authorities had thrown out to the Landport TechnicalCollege. He kept himself in London on his allowance of a guinea aweek, and found that, with proper care, this also covered his clothingallowance, an occasional waterproof collar, that is; and ink andneedles and cotton, and such-like necessaries for a man about town.This was his first year and his first session, but the brown old manin Landport had already got himself detested in many public-houses byboasting of his son, "the Professor." Hill was a vigorous youngster,with a serene contempt for the clergy of all denominations, and afine ambition to reconstruct the world. He regarded his scholarshipas a brilliant opportunity. He had begun to read at seven, and hadread steadily whatever came in his way, good or bad, since then. Hisworldly experience had been limited to the island of Portsea, andacquired chiefly in the wholesale boot factory in which he had workedby day, after passing the seventh standard of the Board school. He hada considerable gift of speech, as the College Debating Society, whichmet amidst the crushing machines and mine models in the metallurgicaltheatre downstairs, already recognised--recognised by a violentbattering of desks whenever he rose. And he was just at that fineemotional age when life opens at the end of a narrow pass like a broadvalley at one's feet, full of the promise of wonderful discoveries andtremendous achievements. And his own limitations, save that he knewthat he knew neither Latin nor French, were all unknown to him.
At first his interest had been divided pretty equally between hisbiological work at the College and social and theological theorising,an employment which he took in deadly earnest. Of a night, when thebig museum library was not open, he would sit on the bed of his roomin Chelsea with his coat and a muffler on, and write out the lecturenotes and revise his dissection memoranda, until Thorpe called himout by a whistle,--the landlady objected to open the door to atticvisitors,--and then the two would go prowling about the shadowy, shiny,gas-lit streets, talking, very much in the fashion of the samplejust given, of the God Idea, and Righteousness, and Carlyle, and theReorganisation of Society. And, in the midst of it all, Hill, arguingnot only for Thorpe, but for the casual passer-by, would lose thethread of his argument glancing at some pretty painted face that lookedmeaningly at him as he passed. Science and Righteousness! But once ortwice lately there had been signs that a third interest was creepinginto his life, and he had found his attention wandering from the fateof the mesoblastic somites or the probable meaning of the blastopore,to the thought of the girl with the brown eyes who sat at the tablebefore him.
She was a paying student; she descended inconceivable social altitudesto speak to him. At the thought of the education she must have had,and the accomplishments she must possess, the soul of Hill becameabject within him. She had spoken to him first over a difficulty aboutthe alisphenoid of a rabbit's skull, and he had found that, in biologyat least, he had no reason for self-abasement. And from that, afterthe manner of young people starting from any starting-point, they gotto generalities, and while Hill attacked her upon the question ofsocialism,--some instinct told him to spare her a direct assault uponher religion,--she was gathering resolution to undertake what she toldherself was his aesthetic education. She was a year or two older thanhe, though the thought never occurred to him. The loan of _News fromNowhere_ was the beginning of a series of cross loans. Upon some absurdfirst principle of his, Hill had never "wasted time" upon poetry,and it seemed an appalling deficiency to her. One day in the lunchhour, when she chanced upon him alone in the little museum where theskeletons were arranged, shamefully eating the bun that constitutedhis midday meal, she retreated, and returned to lend him, with aslightly furtive air, a volume of Browning. He stood sideways towardsher and took the book rather clumsily, because he was holding the bunin the other hand. And in the retrospect his voice lacked the cheerfulclearness he could have wished.
That occurred after the examination in comparative anatomy, on theday before the College turned out its students, and was carefullylocked up by the officials, for the Christmas holidays. The excitementof cramming for the first trial of strength had for a little whiledominated Hill, to the exclusion of his other interests. In theforecasts of the result in which everyone indulged, he was surprisedto find that no one regarded him as a possible competitor for theHarvey Commemoration Medal, of which this and the two subsequentexaminations disposed. It was about this time that Wedderburn, whoso far had lived inconspicuously on the uttermost margin of Hill'sperceptions, began to take on the appearance of an obstacle. By amutual agreement, the nocturnal prowlings with Thorpe ceased for thethree weeks before the examination, and his landlady pointed out thatshe really could not supply so much lamp oil at the price. He walked toand fro from the College with little slips of mnemonics in his hand,lists of crayfish appendages, rabbits' skull-bones, and vertebratenerves, for example, and became a positive nuisance to foot passengersin the opposite direction.
But, by a natural reaction, Poetry and the girl with the brown eyesruled the Christmas holiday. The pending results of the examinationbecame such a secondary consideration that Hill marvelled at hisfather's excitement. Even had he wished it, there was no comparativeanatomy to read in Landport, and he was too poor to buy books, but thestock of poets in the library was extensive, and Hill's attack wasmagnificently sustained. He saturated himself with the fluent numbersof Longfellow and Tennyson, and fortified himself with Shakespeare;found a kindred soul in Pope, and a master in Shelley, and heard andfled the siren voices of Eliza Cook and Mrs. Hemans. But he read nomore Browning, because he hoped for the loan of other volumes from MissHaysman when he returned to London.
He walked from his lodgings to the College with that volume of Browningin his shiny black bag, and his mind teeming with the finest generalpropositions about poetry. Indeed, he framed first this little speechand then that with which to grace the return. The morning was anexceptionally pleasant one for London; there was a clear, hard frostand undeniable blue in the sky, a thin haze softened every outline, andwarm shafts of sunlight struck between the house blocks and turned thesunny side of the street to amber and gold. In the hall of the Collegehe pulled off his glove and signed his name with fingers so stiff withcold that the characteristic dash under the signature he cultivatedbecame a quivering line. He imagined Miss Haysman about him everywhere.He turned at the staircase, and there, below, he saw a crowd strugglingat the foot of the notice-board. This, possibly, was the biology list.He forgot Browning and Miss Haysman for the moment, and
joined thescrimmage. And at last, with his cheek flattened against the sleeve ofthe man on the step above him, he read the list--
CLASS I
H. J. Somers Wedderburn William Hill
and thereafter followed a second class that is outside our presentsympathies. It was characteristic that he did not trouble to look forThorpe on the physics list, but backed out of the struggle at once, andin a curious emotional state between pride over common second-classhumanity and acute disappointment at Wedderburn's success, went on hisway upstairs. At the top, as he was hanging up his coat in the passage,the zoological demonstrator, a young man from Oxford, who secretlyregarded him as a blatant "mugger" of the very worst type, offered hisheartiest congratulations.
At the laboratory door Hill stopped for a second to get his breath,and then entered. He looked straight up the laboratory and saw allfive girl students grouped in their places, and Wedderburn, the onceretiring Wedderburn, leaning rather gracefully against the window,playing with the blind tassel and talking, apparently, to the fiveof them. Now, Hill could talk bravely enough and even overbearinglyto one girl, and he could have made a speech to a roomful of girls,but this business of standing at ease and appreciating, fencing, andreturning quick remarks round a group was, he knew, altogether beyondhim. Coming up the staircase his feelings for Wedderburn had beengenerous, a certain admiration perhaps, a willingness to shake his handconspicuously and heartily as one who had fought but the first round.But before Christmas Wedderburn had never gone up to that end of theroom to talk. In a flash Hill's mist of vague excitement condensedabruptly to a vivid dislike of Wedderburn. Possibly his expressionchanged. As he came up to his place, Wedderburn nodded carelessly tohim, and the others glanced round. Miss Haysman looked at him and awayagain, the faintest touch of her eyes. "I can't agree with you, Mr.Wedderburn," she said.
"I must congratulate you on your first class, Mr. Hill," said thespectacled girl in green, turning round and beaming at him.
"It's nothing," said Hill, staring at Wedderburn and Miss Haysmantalking together, and eager to hear what they talked about.
"We poor folks in the second class don't think so," said the girl inspectacles.
What was it Wedderburn was saying? Something about William Morris!Hill did not answer the girl in spectacles, and the smile died out ofhis face. He could not hear, and failed to see how he could "cut in."Confound Wedderburn! He sat down, opened his bag, hesitated whetherto return the volume of Browning forthwith, in the sight of all, andinstead drew out his new notebooks for the short course in elementarybotany that was now beginning, and which would terminate in February.As he did so, a fat, heavy man, with a white face and pale grey eyes,Bindon, the professor of botany, who came up from Kew for January andFebruary, came in by the lecture theatre door, and passed, rubbing hishands together and smiling, in silent affability down the laboratory.
* * * * *
In the subsequent six weeks Hill experienced some very rapid andcuriously complex emotional developments. For the most part he hadWedderburn in focus--a fact that Miss Haysman never suspected. She toldHill (for in the comparative privacy of the museum she talked a gooddeal to him of socialism and Browning and general propositions) thatshe had met Wedderburn at the house of some people she knew, and "he'sinherited his cleverness; for his father, you know, is the great eyespecialist."
"_My_ father is a cobbler," said Hill, quite irrelevantly, andperceived the want of dignity even as he said it. But the gleam ofjealousy did not offend her. She conceived herself the fundamentalsource of it. He suffered bitterly from a sense of Wedderburn'sunfairness, and a realisation of his own handicap. Here was thisWedderburn had picked up a prominent man for a father, and insteadof his losing so many marks on the score of that advantage, it wascounted to him for righteousness! And while Hill had to introducehimself and talk to Miss Haysman clumsily over mangled guineapigs inthe laboratory, this Wedderburn, in some backstairs way, had access toher social altitudes, and could converse in a polished argot that Hillunderstood perhaps, but felt incapable of speaking. Not, of course,that he wanted to. Then it seemed to Hill that for Wedderburn to comethere day after day with cuffs unfrayed, neatly tailored, preciselybarbered, quietly perfect, was in itself an ill-bred, sneering sortof proceeding. Moreover, it was a stealthy thing for Wedderburn tobehave insignificantly for a space, to mock modesty, to lead Hill tofancy that he himself was beyond dispute the man of the year, andthen suddenly to dart in front of him, and incontinently to swell upin this fashion. In addition to these things, Wedderburn displayed anincreasing disposition to join in any conversational grouping thatincluded Miss Haysman, and would venture, and indeed seek occasion, topass opinions derogatory to socialism and atheism. He goaded Hill toincivilities by neat, shallow, and exceedingly effective personalitiesabout the socialist leaders, until Hill hated Bernard Shaw's gracefulegotisms, William Morris's limited editions and luxurious wall-papers,and Walter Crane's charmingly absurd ideal working men, about as muchas he hated Wedderburn. The dissertations in the laboratory, that hadbeen his glory in the previous term, became a danger, degenerated intoinglorious tussles with Wedderburn, and Hill kept to them only out ofan obscure perception that his honour was involved. In the debatingsociety Hill knew quite clearly that, to a thunderous accompanimentof banged desks, he could have pulverised Wedderburn. Only Wedderburnnever attended the debating society to be pulverised, because--nauseousaffectation!--he "dined late."
You must not imagine that these things presented themselves in quitesuch a crude form to Hill's perception. Hill was a born generaliser.Wedderburn to him was not so much an individual obstacle as a type,the salient angle of a class. The economic theories that, afterinfinite ferment, had shaped themselves in Hill's mind, became abruptlyconcrete at the contact. The world became full of easy-mannered,graceful, gracefully-dressed, conversationally dexterous, finallyshallow Wedderburns, Bishops Wedderburn, Wedderburn M.P.'s, ProfessorsWedderburn, Wedderburn landlords, all with finger-bowl shibboleths andepigrammatic cities of refuge from a sturdy debater. And everyoneill-clothed or ill-dressed, from the cobbler to the cab-runner, was aman and a brother, a fellow-sufferer, to Hill's imagination. So thathe became, as it were, a champion of the fallen and oppressed, albeitto outward seeming only a self-assertive, ill-mannered young man, andan unsuccessful champion at that. Again and again a skirmish over theafternoon tea that the girl students had inaugurated, left Hill withflushed cheeks and a tattered temper, and the debating society noticeda new quality of sarcastic bitterness in his speeches.
You will understand now how it was necessary, if only in the interestsof humanity, that Hill should demolish Wedderburn in the forthcomingexamination and outshine him in the eyes of Miss Haysman; and youwill perceive, too, how Miss Haysman fell into some common femininemisconceptions. The Hill-Wedderburn quarrel, for in his unostentatiousway Wedderburn reciprocated Hill's ill-veiled rivalry, became a tributeto her indefinable charm; she was the Queen of Beauty in a tournamentof scalpels and stumpy pencils. To her confidential friend's secretannoyance, it even troubled her conscience, for she was a good girl,and painfully aware, from Ruskin and contemporary fiction, how entirelymen's activities are determined by women's attitudes. And if Hill neverby any chance mentioned the topic of love to her, she only credited himwith the finer modesty for that omission.
So the time came on for the second examination, and Hill's increasingpallor confirmed the general rumour that he was working hard. In theaerated bread shop near South Kensington Station you would see him,breaking his bun and sipping his milk, with his eyes intent upon apaper of closely written notes. In his bedroom there were propositionsabout buds and stems round his looking-glass, a diagram to catch hiseye, if soap should chance to spare it, above his washing basin.He missed several meetings of the debating society, but he foundthe chance encounters with Miss Haysman in the spacious ways of theadjacent art museum, or in the little museum at the top of the College,or
in the College corridors, more frequent and very restful. Inparticular, they used to meet in a little gallery full of wrought-ironchests and gates, near the art library, and there Hill used to talk,under the gentle stimulus of her flattering attention, of Browning andhis personal ambitions. A characteristic she found remarkable in himwas his freedom from avarice. He contemplated quite calmly the prospectof living all his life on an income below a hundred pounds a year. Buthe was determined to be famous, to make, recognisably in his own properperson, the world a better place to live in. He took Bradlaugh and JohnBurns for his leaders and models, poor, even impecunious, great men.But Miss Haysman thought that such lives were deficient on the aestheticside, by which, though she did not know it, she meant good wall-paperand upholstery, pretty books, tasteful clothes, concerts, and mealsnicely cooked and respectfully served.
At last came the day of the second examination, and the professor ofbotany, a fussy, conscientious man, rearranged all the tables in a longnarrow laboratory to prevent copying, and put his demonstrator on achair on a table (where he felt, he said, like a Hindoo god), to seeall the cheating, and stuck a notice outside the door, "Door closed,"for no earthly reason that any human being could discover. And all themorning from ten till one the quill of Wedderburn shrieked defianceat Hill's, and the quills of the others chased their leaders in atireless pack, and so also it was in the afternoon. Wedderburn was alittle quieter than usual, and Hill's face was hot all day, and hisovercoat bulged with textbooks and notebooks against the last moment'srevision. And the next day, in the morning and in the afternoon, wasthe practical examination, when sections had to be cut and slidesidentified. In the morning Hill was depressed because he knew he hadcut a thick section, and in the afternoon came the mysterious slip.
It was just the kind of thing that the botanical professor was alwaysdoing. Like the income tax, it offered a premium to the cheat. It wasa preparation under the microscope, a little glass slip, held in itsplace on the stage of the instrument by light steel clips, and theinscription set forth that the slip was not to be moved. Each studentwas to go in turn to it, sketch it, write in his book of answers whathe considered it to be, and return to his place. Now, to move such aslip is a thing one can do by a chance movement of the finger, and ina fraction of a second. The professor's reason for decreeing that theslip should not be moved depended on the fact that the object he wantedidentified was characteristic of a certain tree stem. In the positionin which it was placed it was a difficult thing to recognise, but oncethe slip was moved so as to bring other parts of the preparation intoview, its nature was obvious enough.
Hill came to this, flushed from a contest with staining re-agents, satdown on the little stool before the microscope, turned the mirror toget the best light, and then, out of sheer habit, shifted the slip.At once he remembered the prohibition, and, with an almost continuousmotion of his hands, moved it back, and sat paralysed with astonishmentat his action.
Then, slowly, he turned his head. The professor was out of the room;the demonstrator sat aloft on his impromptu rostrum, reading the_Q. Jour. Mi. Sci._; the rest of the examinees were busy, and withtheir backs to him. Should he own up to the accident now? He knewquite clearly what the thing was. It was a lenticel, a characteristicpreparation from the elder-tree. His eyes roved over his intentfellow-students, and Wedderburn suddenly glanced over his shoulder athim with a queer expression in his eyes. The mental excitement that hadkept Hill at an abnormal pitch of vigour these two days gave way to acurious nervous tension. His book of answers was beside him. He did notwrite down what the thing was, but with one eye at the microscope hebegan making a hasty sketch of it. His mind was full of this grotesquepuzzle in ethics that had suddenly been sprung upon him. Should heidentify it? or should he leave this question unanswered? In thatcase Wedderburn would probably come out first in the second result.How could he tell now whether he might not have identified the thingwithout shifting it? It was possible that Wedderburn had failed torecognise it, of course. Suppose Wedderburn too had shifted the slide?He looked up at the clock. There were fifteen minutes in which tomake up his mind. He gathered up his book of answers and the colouredpencils he used in illustrating his replies, and walked back to hisseat.
He read through his manuscript, and then sat thinking and gnawinghis knuckle. It would look queer now if he owned up. He _must_ beatWedderburn. He forgot the examples of those starry gentlemen, JohnBurns and Bradlaugh. Besides, he reflected, the glimpse of the restof the slip he had had was, after all, quite accidental, forced uponhim by chance, a kind of providential revelation rather than an unfairadvantage. It was not nearly so dishonest to avail himself of that asit was of Broome, who believed in the efficacy of prayer, to pray dailyfor a first-class. "Five minutes more," said the demonstrator, foldingup his paper and becoming observant. Hill watched the clock hands untiltwo minutes remained; then he opened the book of answers, and, with hotears and an affectation of ease, gave his drawing of the lenticel itsname.
When the second pass list appeared, the previous positions ofWedderburn and Hill were reversed, and the spectacled girl in green,who knew the demonstrator in private life (where he was practicallyhuman), said that in the result of the two examinations taken togetherHill had the advantage of a mark--167 to 166 out of a possible 200.Everyone admired Hill in a way, though the suspicion of "mugging"clung to him. But Hill was to find congratulations and Miss Haysman'senhanced opinion of him, and even the decided decline in the crestof Wedderburn, tainted by an unhappy memory. He felt a remarkableaccess of energy at first, and the note of a democracy marching totriumph returned to his debating society speeches; he worked at hiscomparative anatomy with tremendous zeal and effect, and he went onwith his aesthetic education. But through it all, a vivid little picturewas continually coming before his mind's eye--of a sneakish personmanipulating a slide.
No human being had witnessed the act, and he was cocksure that nohigher power existed to see it; but for all that it worried him.Memories are not dead things, but alive; they dwindle in disuse,but they harden and develop in all sorts of queer ways if they arebeing continually fretted. Curiously enough, though at the time heperceived clearly that the shifting was accidental, as the days woreon, his memory became confused about it, until at last he was notsure--although he assured himself that he _was_ sure--whether themovement had been absolutely involuntary. Then it is possible thatHill's dietary was conducive to morbid conscientiousness; a breakfastfrequently eaten in a hurry, a midday bun, and, at such hours afterfive as chanced to be convenient, such meat as his means determined,usually in a chophouse in a back street off the Brompton Road.Occasionally he treated himself to threepenny or ninepenny classics,and they usually represented a suppression of potatoes or chops. It isindisputable that outbreaks of self-abasement and emotional revivalhave a distinct relation to periods of scarcity. But apart from thisinfluence on the feelings, there was in Hill a distinct aversionto falsity that the blasphemous Landport cobbler had inculcated bystrap and tongue from his earliest years. Of one fact about professedatheists I am convinced; they may be--they usually are--fools, voidof subtlety, revilers of holy institutions, brutal speakers, andmischievous knaves, but they lie with difficulty. If it were not so,if they had the faintest grasp of the idea of compromise, they wouldsimply be liberal churchmen. And, moreover, this memory poisoned hisregard for Miss Haysman. For she now so evidently preferred him toWedderburn that he felt sure he cared for her, and began reciprocatingher attentions by timid marks of personal regard; at one time he evenbought a bunch of violets, carried it about in his pocket, and producedit, with a stumbling explanation, withered and dead, in the gallery ofold iron. It poisoned, too, the denunciation of capitalist dishonestythat had been one of his life's pleasures. And, lastly, it poisoned histriumph in Wedderburn. Previously he had been Wedderburn's superiorin his own eyes, and had raged simply at a want of recognition. Nowhe began to fret at the darker suspicion of positive inferiority. Hefancied he found justifications for his position in Browning,
but theyvanished on analysis. At last--moved, curiously enough, by exactly thesame motive forces that had resulted in his dishonesty--he went toProfessor Bindon, and made a clean breast of the whole affair. As Hillwas a paid student, Professor Bindon did not ask him to sit down, andhe stood before the professor's desk as he made his confession.
"It's a curious story," said Professor Bindon, slowly realising howthe thing reflected on himself, and then letting his anger rise,--"Amost remarkable story. I can't understand your doing it, and I can'tunderstand this avowal. You're a type of student--Cambridge men wouldnever dream--I suppose I ought to have thought--Why _did_ you cheat?"
"I didn't--cheat," said Hill.
"But you have just been telling me you did."
"I thought I explained"--
"Either you cheated or you did not cheat."
"I said my motion was involuntary."
"I am not a metaphysician, I am a servant of science--of fact. Youwere told not to move the slip. You did move the slip. If that is notcheating"--
"If I was a cheat," said Hill, with the note of hysterics in his voice,"should I come here and tell you?"
"Your repentance, of course, does you credit," said Professor Bindon,"but it does not alter the original facts."
"No, sir," said Hill, giving in in utter self-abasement.
"Even now you cause an enormous amount of trouble. The examination listwill have to be revised."
"I suppose so, sir."
"Suppose so? Of course it must be revised. And I don't see how I canconscientiously pass you."
"Not pass me?" said Hill. "Fail me?"
"It's the rule in all examinations. Or where should we be? What elsedid you expect? You don't want to shirk the consequences of your ownacts?"
"I thought, perhaps"--said Hill. And then, "Fail me? I thought, as Itold you, you would simply deduct the marks given for that slip."
"Impossible!" said Bindon. "Besides, it would still leave you aboveWedderburn. Deduct only the marks--Preposterous! The DepartmentalRegulations distinctly say"--
"But it's my own admission, sir."
"The Regulations say nothing whatever of the manner in which the mattercomes to light. They simply provide"--
"It will ruin me. If I fail this examination, they won't renew myscholarship."
"You should have thought of that before."
"But, sir, consider all my circumstances"--
"I cannot consider anything. Professors in this College are machines.The Regulations will not even let us recommend our students forappointments. I am a machine, and you have worked me. I have to do"--
"It's very hard, sir."
"Possibly it is."
"If I am to be failed this examination, I might as well go home atonce."
"That is as you think proper." Bindon's voice softened a little; heperceived he had been unjust, and, provided he did not contradicthimself, he was disposed to amelioration, "As a private person," hesaid, "I think this confession of yours goes far to mitigate youroffence. But you have set the machinery in motion, and now it must takeits course. I--I am really sorry you gave way."
A wave of emotion prevented Hill from answering. Suddenly, veryvividly, he saw the heavily-lined face of the old Landport cobbler, hisfather. "Good God! What a fool I have been!" he said hotly and abruptly.
"I hope," said Bindon, "that it will be a lesson to you."
But, curiously enough, they were not thinking of quite the sameindiscretion.
There was a pause.
"I would like a day to think, sir, and then I will let you know--aboutgoing home, I mean," said Hill, moving towards the door.
* * * * *
The next day Hill's place was vacant. The spectacled girl in green was,as usual, first with the news. Wedderburn and Miss Haysman were talkingof a performance of _The Meistersingers_ when she came up to them.
"Have you heard?" she said.
"Heard what?"
"There was cheating in the examination."
"Cheating!" said Wedderburn, with his face suddenly hot. "How?"
"That slide"--
"Moved? Never!"
"It was. That slide that we weren't to move"--
"Nonsense!" said Wedderburn. "Why! How could they find out? Who do theysay--?"
"It was Mr. Hill."
"_Hill!_"
"Mr. Hill!"
"Not--surely not the immaculate Hill?" said Wedderburn, recovering.
"I don't believe it," said Miss Haysman. "How do you know?"
"I _didn't_," said the girl in spectacles. "But I know it now for afact. Mr. Hill went and confessed to Professor Bindon himself."
"By Jove!" said Wedderburn. "Hill of all people. But I am alwaysinclined to distrust these philanthropists-on-principle"--
"Are you quite sure?" said Miss Haysman, with a catch in her breath.
"Quite. It's dreadful, isn't it? But, you know, what can you expect?His father is a cobbler."
Then Miss Haysman astonished the girl in spectacles.
"I don't care. I will not believe it," she said, flushing darkly underher warm-tinted skin. "I will not believe it until he has told me sohimself--face to face. I would scarcely believe it then," and abruptlyshe turned her back on the girl in spectacles, and walked to her ownplace.
"It's true, all the same," said the girl in spectacles, peering andsmiling at Wedderburn.
But Wedderburn did not answer her. She was indeed one of those peoplewho seem destined to make unanswered remarks.
THE END
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