"I fail to see it. You have had one day too long as it is."
"But you know I did cut my finger."
"H'm. I have not just the profoundest faith in that cut finger. You know it did happen on the day of the football-match."
The boy laughed. "And Collett will never manage that sole of the foot without you," he said.
"Collett must." Dudley smiled up at the eager face that was bending over his dissection. "I only undertook to find the cutaneous branch of the internal plantar," and he lifted the nerve affectionately on the handle of his scalpel. "Come, Jones, fire away. Ce n'est pas la mer à boire. Half an hour will do it."
"Oh, I say! It would take me four hours. You know, Dudley, there is such a lot of reading on the axilla. I am all in a muddle as it is. I'll sit up half the night reading it, if you will give me another day."
"Very sorry, old man. Ars longa. I must get on with my thorax. It will do you far more good to read in the dissecting-room. Preconceived ideas are a mistake. Get a good lunch, and come back. That's your scalpel, I think, Collett."
"Oh, bother! I only wish I had ideas of any kind! I wish to goodness somebody would demonstrate the whole thing to me, and finish the dissection as he goes along!"
"I will do that with pleasure, if you like, to-morrow. The gain will be mine—and perhaps it will be the best thing you can do now. But don't play that little game too often, if you mean to be an anatomist."
"I don't," cried the boy vehemently. "I wish to heaven I need never see this filthy old hole again!"