St. Bernard's; The Romance of a Medical Student (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER V. THE BEADLE AND TUB THEATRE. 'Tis part of my proud fate To lecture to as many thick-skulled youths As please, each day, to throng the theatre. ?Browning (', Paraceltsut "). 0 Youth and Joy, your airy tread Too lightly springs by Sorrow's bed; Your keen eye-glances are too bright, Too restless for a sick man's sight. -Keble. Old Jeremiah Horne was the beadle of the medical school at St. Bernard's. He had held the post now for nearly thirty years, and his father held it before him. He and his family lived on the premises, and the post was generally understood to be a lucrative one. His motto was, " Nothing for nothing, and very little for a halfpenny." He was a portly man, very dignified in his manner towards the younger students, who were kept at arm's-length by him for purposes they well understood. He was not hard on them for their mischief, their breach of rules, their neglect of work, or any of their shortcomings, only they had to understand, if they wanted his aid, they must tip him well and tip him often. And this they did, and so Jerry Horne " waxed fat and kicked; " and even the professors themselves somehow came to recognise that the beadle was a not less important factor in the school than one of themselves. He could restore order when they individually or collectively repeatedlyfailed. A word from him would reduce the most refractory to his senses, when the threats and tho preaching of the teachers fell on deaf ears. His business was to sec that the theatres and class-rooms were duly arranged for lectures. He had to provide a proper supply of subjects for dissection, to prepare them and allot them in due order. But his most important duty, and the one which gave him the whip hand over all the men, was to register their attendance at l...