‘How much is it this time? and what is it for?’
‘For? I have told you what it is for. The merest trifle will suffice. I have the room—a beautiful room, the best aspect in the house. It is now occupied by young Rumagee Bumagee the great Bombay millionaire’s son. Of course he can be moved. But a bed—there positively is not a spare bed in the house. This is all I want—a bed, and perhaps a tuppenny ha’penny strip of carpet, a couple of chairs, a—let me see; if you give me a slip of paper I can make out in a minute what it will come to.’
‘Never mind that. Will a ten-pound note serve your purposes?’
‘Dear boy! Dear boy! But on one condition, on one condition only, can I accept it—this is a loan, a loan mind! and not a gift. No, no—it is useless to protest; my pride, my sense of honour, forbids my acceptance upon any other terms.’
A day or two afterwards I would learn from George Bird that he and Miss Alice had accepted an invitation to meet me at Sevenoaks. Mr. Donovan, the famous phrenologist, was to be of the party; the Rector of Sevenoaks, and one or two local magnates, had also been invited to dine. We Londoners were to occupy the spare rooms, for this was in the coaching days.
We all knew what we had to expect—a most enjoyable banquet of conviviality. Young Mrs. Wigan, his second wife, was an admirable housekeeper, and nothing could have been better done. The turbot and the haunch of venison were the pick of Grove’s shop, the champagne was iced to perfection, and there was enough of it, as Mr. Donovan whispered to me, casting his eyes to the ceiling, ‘to wash an omnibus, bedad.’ Mr. Donovan, though he never refused Mr. Wigan’s hospitality, balanced the account by vilipending his friend’s extravagant habits. While Mr. Wigan, probably giving him full credit for his gratitude, always spoke of him as ‘Poor old Paddy Donovan.’
With Alfred Wigan, the eldest son, I was on very friendly terms. Nothing could be more unlike his father. His manner in his own house was exactly what it was on the stage. Albany Fonblanque, whose experiences began nearly forty years before mine, and who was not given to waste his praise, told me he considered Alfred Wigan the best ‘gentleman’ he had ever seen on the stage. I think this impression was due in a great measure to Wigan’s entire absence of affectation, and to his persistent appeal to the ‘judicious’ but never to the ‘groundlings.’ Mrs. Alfred Wigan was also a consummate artiste.
CHAPTER XLII
Through George Bird I made the acquaintance of the leading surgeons and physicians of the North London Hospital, where I frequently attended the operations of Erichsen, John Marshall, and Sir Henry Thompson, following them afterwards in their clinical rounds. Amongst the physicians, Professor Sydney Ringer remains one of my oldest friends. Both surgery and therapeutics interested me deeply. With regard to the first, curiosity was supplemented by the incidental desire to overcome the natural repugnance we all feel to the mere sight of blood.
Chemistry I studied in the laboratory of a professional friend of Dr. Bird’s. After a while my teacher would leave me to carry out small commissions of a simple character which had been put into his hands, such as the analysis of water, bread, or other food-stuffs. He himself often had engagements elsewhere, and would leave me in possession of the laboratory, with a small urchin whom he had taught to be useful. This boy was of the meekest and mildest disposition. Whether his master had frightened him or not I do not know. He always spoke in a whisper, and with downcast eyes. He handled everything as if it was about to annihilate him, or he it, and looked as if he wouldn’t bite—even a tartlet.