Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/264

 desire to understand. The scope of the healing craft enlarged itself, and it seemed to him that there could be no finer and more satisfying work than the surgeon's. It was not a mere question of skill with the knife and the knowledge of how and when to use it, but a sympathetic searching out of causes that cut deeper than the knife. He felt himself up against the bigness of life and its human distortions. His attitude towards it was far more subtle and mature than the attitude of the ordinary student who was facetiously interested in disease as a something out of which he would make money. Kit saw much of the humour and the pathos, but he did not see them as his fellows saw them. He saw much deeper. He was the son of his father, that father who had struggled with men and things in order that he—the son—might follow the craft that called him.

Kit had one quarrel at St. Martha's. It came upon him in the person of a fellow named Syme, a fat, sallow, and unclean hulk that rolled about the place emitting gulps of obscene and husky humour. And one day Kit fell foul of it.

"Shut up,—you low beast."

Syme was a powerful brute, and demanding honour, was taken on with gloves in the common-room of the college. Kit smote him with exultation and hatred. He floored the great, sodden fleshly thing, and was liked the better for it. Syme stayed away from the hospital for three days.

A man who could hit as Kit could hit, had every right to be keen, and to carry off the Caley Medal, and the Jonathan Taylor Prize. No one quarrelled with his seriousness, especially when it was a smiling seriousness. Sorrell, coming up to the Opening of the Session, and sitting on a fauteuil and listening to a learned address, saw red gowns and black gowns upon the platform. The prizes were presented by a famous legal luminary, and Kit had to cross the platform twice, collecting his triumphs.

He was cheered and cheered loudly, and Sorrell felt an mward glow, a mother and father pride mingled. The job had been worth it.

They dined at Thomas Roland's, with Cherry at the head of the table, and when they had had music, Cherry told Sorrell's hand. She laoked very wise over it, with a