THE FINDING OF THE BACILLUS.
If I have dwelt so long upon the laboratory and its master, it is because there the great blessing came that has glorified my whole existence. This was the way of it.
One day I asked Prof. Darmstetter some question about the preparation of a microscopic slide from a bit of a frog's lung.
"Vait!" he snapped, "I vill speak vit' you aftervards."
The girls prophesied the terrible things that were to happen, as they lingered in the cloak room, waiting their turn on the threadbare spot in the rug which a rich girl had bought to cover the threadbare spot in the carpet in front of the mirror. "Now you'll catch it!" the last one said, as she carefully put her hat straight with both hands and ran out of the room.
When I returned to the laboratory Prof. Darmstetter motioned me to a chair and took one opposite, from which he fixed his keen eyes upon my face. Again he seemed weighing, judging, considering me with uncanny, impersonal scrutiny.
"How I despise t'ose vomen!" he said at last, throwing up his hands with an impatient gesture.
Used to his ways, I waited in silence.
"I teach t'ose vomen, yes; but I despise t'em," he added.
"If you do, you ought to be ashamed of it," I retorted hotly. "But I don't believe you really despise them. Such a bright lot of girls—why, some of them are bound to be heard from in science some day!"