Poker Jim, Gentleman, and Other Tales and Sketches

by G. Frank Lydston

As I was desirous of mingling with my classmates as much as possible, and was not averse to a certain degree of practical economy, I formed a combination with three undergraduates, who were recommended to me as desirable associates, and became a guest of a medical students’ boarding house—an establishment characterized by abundant opportunities for the study of entomology and the effects of prolonged fasting upon the human body, rather than by the abundance and variety of its larder. As was the custom among medical students, we clubbed together and occupied a large single room—none too elaborately furnished, but very comfortable withal, and made rather attractive by a large, old fashioned fireplace.

My room-mates were most agreeable associates, although not altogether harmonious in tastes and methods of study. Two were young Southerners—men of superior attainments, but typic ladies’ men, and fond of social dissipation and excitement. Both were possessed of some means, and had adopted our mode of living because of social and bohemian instincts rather than from motives of economy. Time was an unimportant factor with them, hence they rarely suffered from over-study, although they were often the worse for the wear and tear of social dissipation. If ever there was a well matched pair of college cronies it was my young friends, Will Richardson and Charles Favell.

The fourth member of our circle, Harold Parkyn, was about my own age, and as different from our jovial room-mates as possible. He had been an artist, it seems, and an unappreciated one, which was no fault of his, for he had talent that fell but little short of genius. Despairing of success in his chosen profession and abhorring commercial pursuits, he had entered medicine at a rather late period in life.

I have rarely met a man so ill adapted by nature to medicine as was Parkyn. He was a fine, athletic, handsome fellow, with a clear cut, refined and classical face, and magnificent dark eyes which evidenced a temperament far too esthetic, and emotional faculties too exalted and sensitive to withstand the physical and mental strain incidental to intimate association with human suffering. His first visit to the dissecting room was harrowing to witness, and it was weeks before he made an attempt to qualify in practical anatomy. At his first surgical clinic he fainted outright. A large part of the disagreeable features of caring for the sick filled him with disgust. And yet, Parkyn was plucky; his was not a spirit to be easily discouraged, and he applied himself persistently to the task of subduing his finer feelings and acquiring the proverbial callosity of the medical student—an effort in which he most signally failed.

Parkyn was not only of a delicately sensitive nervous organization, but he was rather peculiar in his ways. Affable at times—when his chums were indulging in jollity—he was generally one of the most reserved and taciturn men I have ever met; especially was he unsocial in the presence of ladies. So noticeable was this peculiarity that the young women of the household had dubbed him “Old Crusty”—which disturbed his serenity not at all, even when Richardson and Favell, in a spirit of mischief and with great show of formality, adopted the sobriquet applied to him by the ladies. In grave and solemn caucus these young gentlemen decided that Parkyn was a confirmed woman hater, and deservedly doomed to die an old bachelor. Their favorite occupation was the reading of love letters which they pretended to have received, and the exhibition of photographs of pretty girls to “Old Crusty.”

Being a practitioner, and therefore concededly the oracle of our little student family, I was a sort of balance wheel to the party, standing between the occasional over-exuberance of Richardson and Favell on the one hand, and the extreme sensitiveness of Parkyn on the other.

One evening as we were all sitting before the fireplace enjoying our after-dinner pipes, Favell brought out from the recesses of his wonderfully productive pocket, a photograph of a most beautiful woman, and with a fine show of counterfeit embarrassment, exhibited it as “The picture of a very dear friend of mine, down home—just received this morning. Very charming girl—particular friend of my sister’s,” etc. etc.

The picture was certainly beautiful, and if Favell was telling the truth he had reason to be proud of the charming young woman’s acquaintance, but as I looked at the photograph, I fancied I remembered having seen it before, in a stationer’s shop. I made no comment, however, and Favell proceeded to launch the arrows of his wit at Parkyn.

“Say, old man, here is something that ought to stir your blood at last! How can you remain a woman hater and know that there are such charming creatures on this old planet of ours as Miss—Ahem!—the original of this photograph? Ah! your eyes are actually growing green with envy. You dear old stick, you! Has it been merely a slight touch of sour grapes after all? Tell me, old fellow, did you ever see anything so beautiful as this face? Did you ever know a lovelier girl?”

Parkyn rose from his chair, and with a mournful expression replied, “One only, my dear boy, and she—but pardon me,” he said, coloring up, “you well know that the subject of ladies is one which—bores me. I must leave such things to social butterflies like yourself and our mutual friend Richardson here. And, by the way, gentlemen, I must hie myself to a subject even more distasteful than that of woman in the abstract. I promised Professor Van Buren that I would finish that abominable dissection of the upper extremity to-night. You see that the trend of Favell’s conversation has driven me to extremities. Yes, thank God! to my last extremity.” Saying which he withdrew.