Dr Phippeny Piecraft had no belief in the immortality of the soul: his studies in cerebral pathology had disposed of that question long ago. "What a philosopher most requires," he used to reflect, "is not so much a big brain of his own as a little knowledge of the brains of other people. Hamlet, for example, if he had studied Yorick's brain instead of sentimentalising over his skull, might have framed his question differently. And as to Hegel—well, that thing knocked all the Hegelism out of me," and he glanced at the gold medal in the glass case.
But, like many another man who disbelieves in the future life, Dr Piecraft was not a little curious as to what might happen to him after death. He was indulging that curiosity on the very evening we first encounter him. "There is a pill in that little bottle," he was thinking, "which would end the whole wretched business in something less than thirty seconds. I wonder I don't swallow it. I should do it if it were not for Jim. But no, I shouldn't! Hamlet, old boy, you were quite right. I'm as big a coward as the rest of them. There's just a chance that if I were to swallow that pill I should find myself in hell-fire in half a minute—and I'm not fool enough, or not hero enough, to run it. Of course, there's just a chance of heaven too; for, after all, I've been a decent sort of chap, and, as Stevenson says, there's an ultimate decency in the Universe. Heaven!—my stars, heaven doesn't attract me! I've never yet heard a description of heaven which doesn't make it almost as bad as the other place. Extraordinary, that when people try to conceive a better world than this they almost invariably picture something infinitely worse! Mahomet knew that: 'cute fellow, Mahomet. And yet he was no more successful than the rest."
Piecraft's reflections, once started on that line, plunged further. "I wonder what sort of heaven would attract me," he thought. "Let me see. Why, yes! If I could be sure of going to a place where I should be professionally busy all day long, plenty of interesting and difficult cases, and no need to worry about Jim's education and his future—I'd swallow the pill this instant. By heaven, I would! I'd do harder things than that. I'd stick it out in this wretched hole for another ten years, I'd give up smoking shag, I'd give up everything, except Jim—if only at the end of the time I could go to some heaven where the stream of patients would never cease! I really don't think I could accept salvation on any other terms. But wait! Yes, there is just one other offer I would look at. If only they'd let me go back to the old home in Gower Street, if they'd make the old street look as it did in those days, and smell as it did, and give tobacco the same taste it had then, and show me Dad standing at the window with Jim in his arms, and let me be in love again with that nice girl at the Slade School—yes, and if they'd let me go into the shilling seats at the Lyceum to see Mary Anderson as Perdita—by Gad, I'd take the pill for that, indeed I would!"
He was pursuing these reflections when his housekeeper entered the room with three or four letters. He looked them over, and his face brightened when he saw that one of them was from his half-brother Jim. A pipe was instantly filled and Piecraft re-settled himself in his arm-chair with the open letter in his hand. Jim's letter was dated from Harrow and ran as follows:—
"Dear Phip,—Many thanks for your congratulations on my eighteenth birthday and for the enclosure of two pounds. Don't be angry, old chap, when I tell you how I spent them. I got leave at once to go down town, and bought you a silk hat, a pair of gloves, some collars, and a couple of ties. You will get them all to-morrow, and I hope the hat and gloves are the right size. I am pretty sure they are. I was half inclined to buy you a box of cigars, but I thought you needed the other things more.
"The fact of the case is, Phip, I have definitely made up my mind to be a burden on you no longer. True, I might get a scholarship at the 'Varsity, as I got one at Harrow. But you would still have to pinch to maintain me; and when I remember how long you have done it already, I feel a perfect beast. I am old enough now to understand what it means, and I tell you, Phip, that nothing will induce me to come back to Harrow after the present term. So please give notice at once. I mean to go out to the Colonies with a man from the Modern Side, and I shall earn my living somehow—as a labourer if need be, for I am big and strong enough. Indeed, I would rather enlist than go on with this.
"Have you ever thought of trying to make a bit by writing, Phip? I believe you could write a novel. Don't you remember what bully stories you used to tell me when I was a kid? Have a shot at it, old boy. There's a person here in the Sixth who has a knack that way, and he made a hundred pounds by a thing he wrote. He got the tip for it out of a book on the art of novel-writing, the advertisement of which I have cut out of the Daily Mail and send you enclosed. I would have sent you the book itself had there been enough left out of the two pounds. But there was only fourpence.
"The Head preached a capital sermon last night on the text, 'Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.' The instant he gave out the words I thought of you, old Phip. And I went on thinking of you till he had done. That's how I know the sermon was a good one, though I didn't listen to another word. Anything that makes me think of you must be good. Phip, you are a dead cert. for heaven when you die. But don't die yet, there's a good chap. For if you go, I shall go too.—Ever yours, Jim.
"P.S.—Don't forget to give notice that I am leaving this term."
When Dr Piecraft laid down the letter his eyes were full of tears. "The only bit of heaven that's left me," he said aloud, "is going to be taken away. There's one person in the world, anyhow, who doesn't think me a failure. If you go to the Colonies, Jim, I shall take the pill, come what may. You're a warm-hearted boy, Jim, but cruel too. I'd rather spend a hundred a year on you and go threadbare in consequence, than earn ten thousand a year and not have you to spend it on. At the same time, my only chance of making you relent is to earn some money.—What the deuce is all this about novel-writing?"
He took up the advertisement which had fallen in his lap, and read as follows: "How to Write Novels—a Guide to Fortune in Literature. Containing Practical Instructions for Amateurs, whereby Success is assured. By an Old Hand."
Next morning Piecraft bought the book. As no patients came that day he had ample leisure to read it. "Easy as lying," he said to himself when he had finished. "I see the trick of it. And, by George, I'll make the first attempt this very night. I have half a dozen ideas already. Cerebral pathology is no bad training for a novelist."
So he sat down to work, and by two in the morning had written the first chapter of a very promising novel. In ten days more the novel was complete.