XVIII.
A SLIP UNDER THE MICROSCOPE.
Outside the laboratory windows was a watery-grey fog, and within a closewarmth and the yellow light of the green-shaded gas lamps that stood twoto each table down its narrow length. On each table stood a couple ofglass jars containing the mangled vestiges of the crayfish, mussels,frogs, and guinea-pigs upon which the students had been working, and downthe side of the room, facing the windows, were shelves bearing bleacheddissections in spirits, surmounted by a row of beautifully executedanatomical drawings in white-wood frames and overhanging a row of cubicallockers. All the doors of the laboratory were panelled with blackboard,and on these were the half-erased diagrams of the previous day's work. Thelaboratory was empty, save for the demonstrator, who sat near thepreparation-room door, and silent, save for a low, continuous murmur andthe clicking of the rocker microtome at which he was working. Butscattered about the room were traces of numerous students: hand-bags,polished boxes of instruments, in one place a large drawing covered bynewspaper, and in another a prettily bound copy of _News fromNowhere_, a book oddly at variance with its surroundings. These thingshad been put down hastily as the students had arrived and hurried at onceto secure their seats in the adjacent lecture theatre. Deadened by theclosed door, the measured accents of the professor sounded as afeatureless muttering.
Presently, faint through the closed windows came the sound of the Oratoryclock striking the hour of eleven. The clicking of the microtome ceased,and the demonstrator looked at his watch, rose, thrust his hands into hispockets, and walked slowly down the laboratory towards the lecture theatredoor. He stood listening for a moment, and then his eye fell on the littlevolume by William Morris. He picked it up, glanced at the title, smiled,opened it, looked at the name on the fly-leaf, ran the leaves through withhis hand, and put it down. Almost immediately the even murmur of thelecturer ceased, there was a sudden burst of pencils rattling on the desksin the lecture theatre, a stirring, a scraping of feet, and a number ofvoices speaking 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, and leftthe laboratory by the preparation-room door. As he did so, first one, andthen several students carrying notebooks entered the laboratory from thelecture theatre, and distributed themselves among the little tables, orstood in a group about the doorway. They were an exceptionallyheterogeneous assembly, for while Oxford and Cambridge still recoil fromthe blushing prospect of mixed classes, the College of Science anticipatedAmerica in the matter years ago--mixed socially, too, for the prestige ofthe College is high, and its scholarships, free of any age limit, dredgedeeper even than do those of the Scotch universities. The class numberedone-and-twenty, but some remained in the theatre questioning theprofessor, copying the black-board diagrams before they were washed off,or examining the special specimens he had produced to illustrate the day'steaching. Of the nine who had come into the laboratory three were girls,one of whom, a little fair woman, wearing spectacles and dressed ingreyish-green, was peering out of the window at the fog, while the othertwo, both wholesome-looking, plain-faced schoolgirls, unrolled and put onthe brown holland aprons they wore while dissecting. Of the men, two wentdown the laboratory to their places, one a pallid, dark-bearded man, whohad once been a tailor; the other a pleasant-featured, ruddy young man oftwenty, dressed in a well-fitting brown suit; young Wedderburn, the son ofWedderburn, the eye specialist. The others formed a little knot near thetheatre door. One of these, a dwarfed, spectacled figure, with ahunchback, sat on a bent wood stool; two others, one a short, darkyoungster, and the other a flaxen-haired, reddish-complexioned young man,stood leaning side by side against the slate sink, while the fourth stoodfacing them, and maintained the larger share of the conversation.
This last person was named Hill. He was a sturdily built young fellow, ofthe same age as Wedderburn; he had a white face, dark grey eyes, hair ofan indeterminate colour, and prominent, irregular features. He talkedrather louder than was needful, and thrust his hands deeply into hispockets. His collar was frayed and blue with the starch of a carelesslaundress, his clothes were evidently ready-made, and there was a patch onthe side of his boot near the toe. And as he talked or listened to theothers, he glanced now and again towards the lecture theatre door. Theywere discussing the depressing peroration of the lecture they had justheard, the last lecture it was in the introductory course in zoology."From ovum to ovum is the goal of the higher vertebrata," the lecturer hadsaid in his melancholy tones, and so had neatly rounded off the sketchof comparative anatomy he had been developing. The spectacled hunchbackhad repeated it, with noisy appreciation, had tossed it towards thefair-haired student with an evident provocation, and had started one ofthese vague, rambling discussions on generalities, so unaccountably dearto the student mind all the world over.
"That is our goal, perhaps--I admit it, as far as science goes," said thefair-haired student, rising to the challenge. "But there are things abovescience."
"Science," said Hill confidently, "is systematic knowledge. Ideas thatdon't come into the system--must anyhow--be loose ideas." He was not quitesure whether that was a clever saying or a fatuity until his hearers tookit seriously.
"The thing I cannot understand," said the hunchback, at large, "is whetherHill is a materialist or not."
"There is one thing above matter," said Hill promptly, feeling he had abetter thing this time; aware, too, of someone in the doorway behind him,and raising his voice a trifle for her benefit, "and that is, the delusionthat there is something above matter."
"So we have your gospel at last," said the fair student. "It's all adelusion, is it? All our aspirations to lead something more than dogs'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 about thebeggar in the gutter? Why are you bothering yourself to lend that book "--he indicated William Morris by a movement of the head--"to everyone in thelab.?"
"Girl," said the hunchback indistinctly, and glanced guiltily over hisshoulder.
The girl in brown, with the brown eyes, had come into the laboratory, andstood on the other side of the table behind him, with her rolled-up apronin one hand, looking over her shoulder, listening to the discussion. Shedid not notice the hunchback, because she was glancing from Hill to hisinterlocutor. Hill's consciousness of her presence betrayed itself to heronly in his studious ignorance of the fact; but she understood that, andit pleased her. "I see no reason," said he, "why a man should live like abrute because he knows of nothing beyond matter, and does not expect toexist 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. And thenthe hunchback came to his rescue and inserted a question. He was aterrible 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 evenas it was asked, relief came in the person of Brooks, the laboratoryattendant, who entered by the preparation-room door, carrying a number offreshly killed guinea-pigs by their hind legs. "This is the last batch ofmaterial this session," said the youngster who had not previously spoken.Brooks advanced up the laboratory, smacking down a couple of guinea-pigsat each table. The rest of the class, scenting the prey from afar, camecrowding in by the lecture theatre door, and the discussion perishedabruptly as the students who were not already in their
places hurried tothem to secure the choice of a specimen. There was a noise of keysrattling on split rings as lockers were opened and dissecting instrumentstaken out. Hill was already standing by his table, and his box of scalpelswas sticking out of his pocket. The girl in brown came a step towards him,and, leaning over his table, said softly, "Did you see that I returnedyour 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 front ofHill's, and Hill, forgetting her forthwith, took a notebook out of thedrawer of his table, turned over its leaves hastily, drew a stumpy pencilfrom his pocket, and prepared to make a copious note of the comingdemonstration. For demonstrations and lectures are the sacred text of theCollege students. Books, saving only the Professor's own, you may--it iseven 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 a week,and found that, with proper care, this also covered his clothingallowance, an occasional waterproof collar, that is; and ink and needlesand cotton, and such-like necessaries for a man about town. This was hisfirst year and his first session, but the brown old man in Landport hadalready got himself detested in many public-houses by boasting of his son,"the Professor." Hill was a vigorous youngster, with a serene contempt forthe clergy of all denominations, and a fine ambition to reconstruct theworld. He regarded his scholarship as a brilliant opportunity. He hadbegun to read at seven, and had read steadily whatever came in his way,good or bad, since then. His worldly experience had been limited to theisland of Portsea, and acquired chiefly in the wholesale boot factory inwhich he had worked by day, after passing the seventh standard of theBoard school. He had a considerable gift of speech, as the CollegeDebating Society, which met amidst the crushing machines and mine modelsin the metallurgical theatre downstairs, already recognised--recognised bya violent battering of desks whenever he rose. And he was just at thatfine emotional age when life opens at the end of a narrow pass like abroad valley at one's feet, full of the promise of wonderful discoveriesand tremendous 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, anemployment which he took in deadly earnest. Of a night, when the bigmuseum library was not open, he would sit on the bed of his room inChelsea with his coat and a muffler on, and write out the lecture notesand revise his dissection memoranda, until Thorpe called him out by awhistle--the landlady objected to open the door to attic visitors--andthen the two would go prowling about the shadowy, shiny, gas-lit streets,talking, very much in the fashion of the sample just given, of the Godidea, and Righteousness, and Carlyle, and the Reorganisation of Society.And in the midst of it all, Hill, arguing not only for Thorpe, but for thecasual passer-by, would lose the thread of his argument glancing at somepretty painted face that looked meaningly at him as he passed. Science andRighteousness! But once or twice lately there had been signs that a thirdinterest was creeping into his life, and he had found his attentionwandering from the fate of the mesoblastic somites or the probable meaningof the blastopore, to the thought of the girl with the brown eyes who satat the table before him.
She was a paying student; she descended inconceivable social altitudes tospeak to him. At the thought of the education she must have had, and theaccomplishments she must possess, the soul of Hill became abject withinhim. She had spoken to him first over a difficulty about the alisphenoidof a rabbit's skull, and he had found that, in biology at least, he had noreason for self-abasement. And from that, after the manner of young peoplestarting from any starting-point, they got to generalities, and while Hillattacked her upon the question of socialism--some instinct told him tospare her a direct assault upon her religion--she was gathering resolutionto undertake what she told herself was his aesthetic education. She was ayear or two older than he, though the thought never occurred to him. Theloan of _News from Nowhere_ was the beginning of a series of crossloans. Upon some absurd first principle of his, Hill had never "wastedtime" Upon poetry, and it seemed an appalling deficiency to her. One dayin the lunch hour, when she chanced upon him alone in the little museumwhere the skeletons were arranged, shamefully eating the bun thatconstituted his midday meal, she retreated, and returned to lend him, witha slightly furtive air, a volume of Browning. He stood sideways towardsher and took the book rather clumsily, because he was holding the bun inthe other hand. And in the retrospect his voice lacked the cheerfulclearness he could have wished.
That occurred after the examination in comparative anatomy, on the daybefore the College turned out its students, and was carefully locked up bythe officials, for the Christmas holidays. The excitement of cramming forthe first trial of strength had for a little while dominated Hill, to theexclusion of his other interests. In the forecasts of the result in whicheveryone indulged he was surprised to find that no one regarded him as apossible competitor for the Harvey Commemoration Medal, of which this andthe two subsequent examinations disposed. It was about this time thatWedderburn, who so far had lived inconspicuously on the uttermost marginof Hill's perceptions, began to take on the appearance of an obstacle. Bya mutual agreement, the nocturnal prowlings with Thorpe ceased for thethree weeks before the examination, and his landlady pointed out that shereally could not supply so much lamp oil at the price. He walked to andfro from the College with little slips of mnemonics in his hand, lists ofcrayfish appendages, rabbits' skull-bones, and vertebrate nerves, forexample, and became a positive nuisance to foot passengers in the oppositedirection.
But, by a natural reaction, Poetry and the girl with the brown eyes ruledthe Christmas holiday. The pending results of the examination became sucha secondary consideration that Hill marvelled at his father's excitement.Even had he wished it, there was no comparative anatomy to read inLandport, and he was too poor to buy books, but the stock of poets in thelibrary was extensive, and Hill's attack was magnificently sustained. Hesaturated himself with the fluent numbers of Longfellow and Tennyson, andfortified himself with Shakespeare; found a kindred soul in Pope, and amaster in Shelley, and heard and fled the siren voices of Eliza Cook andMrs. Hemans. But he read no more Browning, because he hoped for the loanof other volumes from Miss Haysman when he returned to London.
He walked from his lodgings to the College with that volume of Browning inhis shiny black bag, and his mind teeming with the finest generalpropositions about poetry. Indeed, he framed first this little speech andthen that with which to grace the return. The morning was an exceptionallypleasant one for London; there was a clear, hard frost and undeniable bluein the sky, a thin haze softened every outline, and warm shafts ofsunlight struck between the house blocks and turned the sunny side of thestreet to amber and gold. In the hall of the College he pulled off hisglove and signed his name with fingers so stiff with cold that thecharacteristic dash under the signature he cultivated became a quiveringline. He imagined Miss Haysman about him everywhere. He turned at thestaircase, and there, below, he saw a crowd struggling at the foot of thenotice-board. This, possibly, was the biology list. He forgot Browning andMiss Haysman for the moment, and joined the scrimma
ge. And at last, withhis cheek flattened against the sleeve of the man on the step above him,he read the list--
CLASS IH. J. Somers WedderburnWilliam 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, and ina curious emotional state between pride over common second-class humanityand acute disappointment at Wedderburn's success, went on his wayupstairs. At the top, as he was hanging up his coat in the passage, thezoological demonstrator, a young man from Oxford, who secretly regardedhim as a blatant "mugger" of the very worst type, offered his heartiestcongratulations.
At the laboratory door Hill stopped for a second to get his breath, andthen entered. He looked straight up the laboratory and saw all five girlstudents grouped in their places, and Wedderburn, the once retiringWedderburn, leaning rather gracefully against the window, playing with theblind tassel and talking, apparently, to the five of them. Now, Hill couldtalk bravely enough and even overbearingly to one girl, and he could havemade a speech to a roomful of girls, but this business of standing at easeand appreciating, fencing, and returning quick remarks round a group was,he knew, altogether beyond him. Coming up the staircase his feelings forWedderburn had been generous, a certain admiration perhaps, a willingnessto shake his hand conspicuously and heartily as one who had fought but thefirst round. But before Christmas Wedderburn had never gone up to that endof the room 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 to him,and the others glanced round. Miss Haysman looked at him and away again,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 Haysman talkingtogether, 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! Hilldid not answer the girl in spectacles, and the smile died out of his face.He could not hear, and failed to see how he could "cut in." ConfoundWedderburn! He sat down, opened his bag, hesitated whether to return thevolume of Browning forthwith, in the sight of all, and instead drew outhis new notebooks for the short course in elementary botany that was nowbeginning, 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 ofbotany, who came up from Kew for January and February--came in by thelecture theatre door, and passed, rubbing his hands together and smiling,in silent affability down the laboratory.
* * * * *
In the subsequent six weeks Hill experienced some very rapid and curiouslycomplex emotional developments. For the most part he had Wedderburn infocus--a fact that Miss Haysman never suspected. She told Hill (for in thecomparative privacy of the museum she talked a good deal to him ofsocialism and Browning and general propositions) that she had metWedderburn at the house of some people she knew, and "he's inherited hiscleverness; for his father, you know, is the great eye-specialist."
"_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 fundamental sourceof it. He suffered bitterly from a sense of Wedderburn's unfairness, and arealisation of his own handicap. Here was this Wedderburn had picked up aprominent man for a father, and instead of his losing so many marks on thescore of that advantage, it was counted to him for righteousness! Andwhile Hill had to introduce himself and talk to Miss Haysman clumsily overmangled guinea-pigs in the laboratory, this Wedderburn, in some backstairsway, had access to her social altitudes, and could converse in a polishedargot that Hill understood perhaps, but felt incapable of speaking. Not,of course, that he wanted to. Then it seemed to Hill that for Wedderburnto come there day after day with cuffs unfrayed, neatly tailored,precisely barbered, quietly perfect, was in itself an ill-bred, sneeringsort of proceeding. Moreover, it was a stealthy thing for Wedderburn tobehave insignificantly for a space, to mock modesty, to lead Hill to fancythat he himself was beyond dispute the man of the year, and then suddenlyto dart in front of him, and incontinently to swell up in this fashion. Inaddition to these things, Wedderburn displayed an increasing dispositionto join in any conversational grouping that included Miss Haysman, andwould venture, and indeed seek occasion, to pass opinions derogatory tosocialism and atheism. He goaded Hill to incivilities by neat, shallow,and exceedingly effective personalities about the socialist leaders,until Hill hated Bernard Shaw's graceful egotisms, William Morris'slimited editions and luxurious wall-papers, and Walter Crane's charminglyabsurd ideal working men, about as much as he hated Wedderburn. Thedissertations in the laboratory, that had been his glory in the previousterm, became a danger, degenerated into inglorious tussels withWedderburn, and Hill kept to them only out of an obscure perception thathis honour was involved. In the debating society Hill knew quite clearlythat, to a thunderous accompaniment of banged desks, he could havepulverised Wedderburn. Only Wedderburn never attended the debating societyto be pulverised, because--nauseous affectation!--he "dined late."
You must not imagine that these things presented themselves in quite sucha crude form to Hill's perception. Hill was a born generaliser. Wedderburnto him was not so much an individual obstacle as a type, the salient angleof a class. The economic theories that, after infinite ferment, had shapedthemselves in Hill's mind, became abruptly concrete at the contact. Theworld became full of easy-mannered, graceful, gracefully-dressed,conversationally dexterous, finally shallow Wedderburns, BishopsWedderburn, Wedderburn M.P.'s, Professors Wedderburn, Wedderburnlandlords, all with finger-bowl shibboleths and epigrammatic cities ofrefuge from a sturdy debater. And everyone ill-clothed or ill-dressed,from the cobbler to the cab-runner, was a man and a brother, afellow-sufferer, to Hill's imagination. So that he became, as it were, achampion of the fallen and oppressed, albeit to outward seeming only aself-assertive, ill-mannered young man, and an unsuccessful champion atthat. Again and again a skirmish over the afternoon tea that the girlstudents had inaugurated left Hill with flushed cheeks and a tatteredtemper, and the debating society noticed a new quality of sarcasticbitterness in his speeches.
You will understand now how it was necessary, if only in the interests ofhumanity, that Hill should demolish Wedderburn in the forthcomingexamination and outshine him in the eyes of Miss Haysman; and you willperceive, too, how Miss Haysman fell into some common femininemisconceptions. The Hill-Wedderburn quarrel, for in his unostentatious wayWedderburn reciprocated Hill's ill-veiled rivalry, became a tribute to herindefinable charm; she was the Queen of Beauty in a tournament of scalpelsand stumpy pencils. To her confidential friend's secret annoyance, it eventroubled her conscience, for she was a good girl, and painfully aware,from Ruskin and contemporary fiction, how entirely men's activities aredetermined by women's attitudes. And if Hill never by any chance mentionedthe topic of love to her, she only credited him with the finer modesty forthat omission. So the time came on for the second examination, and Hill'sincreasing pallor confirmed the general rumour that he was working hard.In the aerated bread shop near South Kensington Station you would see him,breaking his bun and sipping his milk, with his eyes intent upon a paperof closely written notes. In his bedroom there were propositions aboutbuds and stems round his looking-glass, a diagram to catch his eye, ifsoap should chance to spare it, above his washing basin. He missed severalmeetings of the debating society, but he found the chance encounters withMiss Haysman in the spacious ways of the adjacent art museum, or in thelittle museum at the top of the College, or in the College corridors, morefrequent and very restful. In particular, they used to meet in a littleg
allery full of wrought-iron chests and gates, near the art library, andthere Hill used to talk, under the gentle stimulus of her flatteringattention, of Browning and his personal ambitions. A characteristic shefound remarkable in him was his freedom from avarice. He contemplatedquite calmly the prospect of living all his life on an income below ahundred pounds a year. But he was determined to be famous, to make,recognisably in his own proper person, the world a better place to livein. He took Bradlaugh and John Burns for his leaders and models, poor,even impecunious, great men. But Miss Haysman thought that such lives weredeficient on the aesthetic side, by which, though she did not know it, shemeant good wall-paper and upholstery, pretty books, tasteful clothes,concerts, and meals nicely 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 a chairon a table (where he felt, he said, like a Hindoo god), to see all thecheating, and stuck a notice outside the door, "Door closed," for noearthly reason that any human being could discover. And all the morningfrom ten till one the quill of Wedderburn shrieked defiance at Hill's, andthe quills of the others chased their leaders in a tireless pack, and soalso it was in the afternoon. Wedderburn was a little quieter than usual,and Hill's face was hot all day, and his overcoat bulged with textbooksand notebooks against the last moment's revision. And the next day, in themorning and in the afternoon, was the practical examination, when sectionshad to be cut and slides identified. In the morning Hill was depressedbecause he knew he had cut a thick section, and in the afternoon came themysterious 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 was apreparation under the microscope, a little glass slip, held in its placeon the stage of the instrument by light steel clips, and the inscriptionset forth that the slip was not to be moved. Each student was to go inturn to it, sketch it, write in his book of answers what he considered itto be, and return to his place. Now, to move such a slip is a thing onecan do by a chance movement of the finger, and in a fraction of a second.The professor's reason for decreeing that the slip should not be moveddepended on the fact that the object he wanted identified wascharacteristic of a certain tree stem. In the position in which it wasplaced it was a difficult thing to recognise, but once the slip was movedso as to bring other parts of the preparation into view, its nature wasobvious enough.
Hill came to this, flushed from a contest with staining re-agents, satdown on the little stool before the microscope, turned the mirror to getthe best light, and then, out of sheer habit, shifted the slips. At oncehe remembered the prohibition, and, with an almost continuous motion ofhis hands, moved it back, and sat paralysed with astonishment at hisaction.
Then, slowly, he turned his head. The professor was out of the room; thedemonstrator sat aloft on his impromptu rostrum, reading the _Q. Jour.Mi. Sci_.; the rest of the examinees were busy, and with their backs tohim. Should he own up to the accident now? He knew quite clearly what thething was. It was a lenticel, a characteristic preparation from theelder-tree. His eyes roved over his intent fellow-students, and Wedderburnsuddenly glanced over his shoulder at him with a queer expression in hiseyes. The mental excitement that had kept Hill at an abnormal pitch ofvigour these two days gave way to a curious nervous tension. His book ofanswers was beside him. He did not write down what the thing was, but withone eye at the microscope he began making a hasty sketch of it. His mindwas full of this grotesque puzzle in ethics that had suddenly been sprungupon him. Should he identify it? or should he leave this questionunanswered? In that case Wedderburn would probably come out first in thesecond result. How could he tell now whether he might not have identifiedthe thing without shifting it? It was possible that Wedderburn had failedto recognise it, of course. Suppose Wedderburn too had shifted the slide?He looked up at the clock. There were fifteen minutes in which to make uphis mind. He gathered up his book of answers and the coloured pencils heused in illustrating his replies and walked back to his seat.
He read through his manuscript, and then sat thinking and gnawing hisknuckle. It would look queer now if he owned up. He _must_ beatWedderburn. He forgot the examples of those starry gentlemen, John Burnsand Bradlaugh. Besides, he reflected, the glimpse of the rest of the sliphe had had was, after all, quite accidental, forced upon him by chance, akind of providential revelation rather than an unfair advantage. It wasnot nearly so dishonest to avail himself of that as it was of Broome, whobelieved in the efficacy of prayer, to pray daily for a first-class. "Fiveminutes more," said the demonstrator, folding up his paper and becomingobservant. Hill watched the clock hands until two minutes remained; thenhe opened the book of answers, and, with hot ears and an affectation ofease, gave his drawing of the lenticel its name.
When the second pass list appeared, the previous positions of Wedderburnand Hill were reversed, and the spectacled girl in green, who knew thedemonstrator in private life (where he was practically human), said thatin the result of the two examinations taken together Hill had theadvantage of a mark--167 to 166 out of a possible 200. Everyone admiredHill in a way, though the suspicion of "mugging" clung to him. But Hillwas to find congratulations and Miss Haysman's enhanced opinion of him,and even the decided decline in the crest of Wedderburn, tainted by anunhappy memory. He felt a remarkable access of energy at first, and thenote of a democracy marching to triumph returned to his debating-societyspeeches; he worked at his comparative anatomy with tremendous zeal andeffect, and he went on with his aesthetic education. But through it all, avivid little picture was continually coming before his mind's eye--of asneakish person manipulating a slide.
No human being had witnessed the act, and he was cocksure that no higherpower existed to see, it; but for all that it worried him. Memories arenot dead things but alive; they dwindle in disuse, but they harden anddevelop in all sorts of queer ways if they are being continually fretted.Curiously enough, though at the time he perceived clearly that theshifting was accidental, as the days wore on, his memory became confusedabout it, until at last he was not sure--although he assured himself thathe _was_ sure--whether the movement had been absolutely involuntary.Then it is possible that Hill's dietary was conducive to morbidconscientiousness; a breakfast frequently eaten in a hurry, a midday bun,and, at such hours after five as chanced to be convenient, such meat ashis means determined, usually in a chop-house in a back street off theBrompton Road. Occasionally he treated himself to threepenny or ninepennyclassics, and they usually represented a suppression of potatoes or chops.It is indisputable 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 aversion tofalsity that the blasphemous Landport cobbler had inculcated by strap andtongue from his earliest years. Of one fact about professed atheists I amconvinced; they may be--they usually are--fools, void of subtlety,revilers of holy institutions, brutal speakers, and mischievous knaves,but they lie with difficulty. If it were not so, if they had the faintestgrasp of the idea of compromise, they would simply be liberal churchmen.And, moreover, this memory poisoned his regard for Miss Haysman. For shenow so evidently preferred him to Wedderburn that he felt sure he caredfor her, and began reciprocating her attentions by timid marks of personalregard; at one time he even bought a bunch of violets, carried it about inhis pocket, and produced it, with a stumbling explanation, withered anddead, in the gallery of old iron. It poisoned, too, the denunciation ofcapitalist dishonesty that had been one of his life's pleasures. And,lastly, it poisoned his triumph in Wedderburn. Previously he had beenWedderburn's superior in his own eyes, and had raged simply at a want ofrecognition. Now he began to fret at the darker suspicion of positiveinferiority. He fancied he found justifications for his position inBrowning, but they vanished on analysis. At last--moved, curiously enough,by exactly the same motive force
s that had resulted in his dishonesty--hewent to Professor Bindon, and made a clean breast of the whole affair. AsHill was 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 how thething reflected on himself, and then letting his anger rise,--"a mostremarkable story. I can't understand your doing it, and I can't understandthis avowal. You're a type of student--Cambridge men would never dream--Isuppose 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, "butit 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 else didyou expect? You don't want to shirk the consequences of your own acts?"
"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. TheRegulations will not even let us recommend our students for appointments.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 at once."
"That is as you think proper." Bindon's voice softened a little; heperceived he had been unjust, and, provided he did not contradict himself,he was disposed to amelioration. "As a private person," he said, "I thinkthis confession of yours goes far to mitigate your offence. But you haveset the machinery in motion, and now it must take its course. I--I amreally sorry you gave way."
A wave of emotion prevented Hill from answering. Suddenly, very vividly,he saw the heavily-lined face of the old Landport cobbler, his father."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, asusual, first with the news. Wedderburn and Miss Haysman were talking of aperformance 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 always inclinedto 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? Hisfather is a cobbler."
Then Miss Haysman astonished the girl in spectacles.
"I don't care. I will not believe it," she said, flushing darkly under herwarm-tinted skin. "I will not believe it until he has told me so himself--face to face. I would scarcely believe it then," and abruptly she turnedher back on the girl in spectacles, and walked to her own place.
"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 people whoseemed destined to make unanswered remarks.