Page 642 - of-human-bondage-

LXXX

or the next three months Philip worked on subjects
Fwhich were new to him. The unwieldy crowd which had
entered the Medical School nearly two years before had
thinned out: some had left the hospital, finding the exami-
nations more difficult to pass than they expected, some had
been taken away by parents who had not foreseen the ex-
pense of life in London, and some had drifted away to other
callings. One youth whom Philip knew had devised an in-
genious plan to make money; he had bought things at sales
and pawned them, but presently found it more profitable
to pawn goods bought on credit; and it had caused a little
excitement at the hospital when someone pointed out his
name in police-court proceedings. There had been a remand,
then assurances on the part of a harassed father, and the
young man had gone out to bear the White Man’s Burden
overseas. The imagination of another, a lad who had never
before been in a town at all, fell to the glamour of music-
halls and bar parlours; he spent his time among racing-men,
tipsters, and trainers, and now was become a book-maker’s
clerk. Philip had seen him once in a bar near Piccadilly Cir-
cus in a tight-waisted coat and a brown hat with a broad, flat
brim. A third, with a gift for singing and mimicry, who had
achieved success at the smoking concerts of the Medical
School by his imitation of notorious comedians, had aban-

1