"That depends very much on what 'a man' means."
"Men with human sympathy and compassion."
"Oh, I mean by a man, a man with human strength. My dear sir, one may be too busy, and at doing good too (though that is not my line, save professionally, because it is my only way of earning money); but one may be too busy at doing good to have time for compassion. If while I was cutting a man's leg off I thought of the pain which he was suffering—"
"Thank heaven!" said Elsley, "that it was not my lot to become a medical man."
Tom looked at him with the quaintest smile: a flush of mingled anger and contempt had been rising in him as he heard the ex-bottle-boy talking sentiment: but he only went on quietly,
"No, sir; with your more delicate sensibilities, you may thank Heaven that you did not become a medical man; your life would have been one of torture, disgust, and agonising sense of responsibility. But do you not see that you must thank Heaven for the sufferer's sake also? I will not shock you again by talking of amputation; but even in the smallest matter—even if you were merely sending medicine to an old maid—suppose that your imagination were preoccupied by the thought of her old age, her sufferings, her disappointed hopes, her regretful dream of bygone youth, and beauty, and love, and all the tender fancies which might well spring out of such a mournful spectacle, would you not be but too likely (pardon the bathos) to end by sending her an elderly gentleman's medicine after all, and so either frightfully increasing her sufferings, or ending them once for all?"
Tom said this in the most quiet and natural tone, without even a twinkle of his wicked eye: but Elsley heard him begin with reddening face; and as he went on, the red had turned to purple, and then to deadly yellow; till making a half-step forward he cried fiercely:—
"Sir!" and then stopped suddenly; for his feet slipped upon the polished stone, and on his face he fell into the pool at Thurnall's feet.
"Well for both of us geese!" said Tom inwardly, as he went to pick him up. "I verily believe he was going to strike me, and that would have done for neither of us. I was a fool to say it; but the temptation was so exquisite; and it must have come some day."
But Vavasour staggered up of his own accord, and dashing away Tom's proffered hand, was rushing off without a word.