“Army for Troop,” said Peter, “via a university commission.”
“Even armies have to be handled intelligently nowadays,” said Oswald.
“He’ll go into the cavalry,” said Peter, making one of those tremendous jumps in thought that were characteristic of himself and Joan.
§ 12
A day or so after Troop’s departure Peter waylaid Oswald in the garden. Peter, now that Troop had gone, was amusing himself with dissection again—an interest that Troop had disposed of as a “bit morbid.” Oswald thought the work Peter did neat and good; he had to brush up his own rather faded memories of Huxley’s laboratory in order to keep pace with the boy.
“I wish you’d come to the Glory Hole and look at an old rat I dissected yesterday. I want to get its solar plexus and I’m not sure about it. I’ve been using acetic acid to bring out the nerves, but there’s such a lot of white stuff about....”
The dissection was a good piece of work, the stomach cleaned out and the viscera neatly displayed. Very much in evidence were eight small embryo rats which the specimen under examination, had not science overtaken her, would presently have added to the rat population of the world.
“The old girl’s been going it,” said Peter in a casual tone, and turned these things over with the handle of his scalpel. “Now is all this stuff solar plexus, Nobby?”...
The next morning Oswald stopped short in the middle of his shaving, which in his case involved the most tortuous deflections and grimacings. “It’s all right with the boy,” he said to himself.
“I think it’s all right.