Page 423 - of-human-bondage-

LIV

he examination Philip had passed before he was articled
Tto a chartered accountant was sufficient qualification for
him to enter a medical school. He chose St. Luke’s because
his father had been a student there, and before the end of
the summer session had gone up to London for a day in or-
der to see the secretary. He got a list of rooms from him, and
took lodgings in a dingy house which had the advantage of
being within two minutes’ walk of the hospital.
‘You’ll have to arrange about a part to dissect,’ the secre-
tary told him. ‘You’d better start on a leg; they generally do;
they seem to think it easier.’
Philip found that his first lecture was in anatomy, at elev-
en, and about half past ten he limped across the road, and
a little nervously made his way to the Medical School. Just
inside the door a number of notices were pinned up, lists of
lectures, football fixtures, and the like; and these he looked
at idly, trying to seem at his ease. Young men and boys drib-
bled in and looked for letters in the rack, chatted with one
another, and passed downstairs to the basement, in which
was the student’s reading-room. Philip saw several fellows
with a desultory, timid look dawdling around, and surmised
that, like himself, they were there for the first time. When
he had exhausted the notices he saw a glass door which led
into what was apparently a museum, and having still twenty

Of Human Bondage