“You well know, doctor,” he said, “that I have reformed. I never sketch. Sketching is a lost art so far as I am concerned. You forget, my dear friend—”
I suddenly remembered, and was silent. I alone understood the sentiments that inspired his refusal.
Evening came, and our little party proceeded to the chamber of horrors which, as I supposed, Favell’s boyish nonsense had converted into a mortuary of dead female beauty. I more than half suspected a practical joke. My young friend was much given to such diversions.
Arriving at the dissecting room, we found a large congregation of men standing about one of the tables. Here and there I could see several who, sketch-book in hand, were busily at work utilizing what they evidently considered an artistic opportunity. Favell and Richardson, boylike, pushed their way through the crowd, while Parkyn and I leisurely brought up the rear. I heard the demonstrator of anatomy say—
“Well, gentlemen, we must begin our dissection. We have already devoted too much time to sentiment.”
As the professor poised his gleaming scalpel over the body, Favell exclaimed, “Wait just a moment, sir, please, here comes Parkyn.”
The professor, with whom the cultured and artistic Parkyn was a favorite, stayed his hand, and with knife upraised, waited. The crowd made way for my friend, and I stepped aside to allow him to pass ahead of me.
There are some events which are so replete with action and dramatic excitement that no one, however observing, can faithfully describe them. Note upon this point the conflicting testimony of disinterested eye-witnesses in murder trials. Such was the scene which followed the introduction of Parkyn to the presence of that body.
There was a yell like that of a maniac, a swift rush, the collision of two bodies, a heavy fall! As I sprang quickly into the midst of the swaying, trampling, excited crowd about the table, the demonstrator, pale and frightened, was just rising from the floor, his scalpel still in his trembling hand and his face cut and bleeding where his assailant had struck him in the first mad rush. Parkyn was still lying on the floor, and on endeavoring with the assistance of several students to raise him to his feet, I saw that he was insensible. Upon his temple was a deep, jagged gash where his head had come in contact with the corner of the table.
Temporary emotional insanity in a man of highly wrought nervous organization was the universal verdict, and it was with genuine sorrow and regret that poor Parkyn’s fellow students took him to the hospital, apparently in a lifeless condition.