“What makes it more remarkable, in my poor opinion�—the Bishop, employing his favorite phrase, emptied his liqueur-glass and folded his plump, white hands—“being that our distinguished friend here�—he waved the fattest and whitest of his thumbs toward his host—“seldom, if ever, takes a holiday.�
“When,� said the Distinguished Surgeon, playing with a gold fruit-knife belonging to a set which had formed part of the First Napoleon camp-equipment at Leipsic, “when a professional man’s brain is absolutely clear, his nerves infallibly steady; when his digestion, sleep, appetite are unimpaired by any amount of physical and mental labor; when his hand is the ready, unerring, unflinching servant of his will at all times and all seasons, what need has that man of rest and relaxation?� The strong, supple, finely-modeled hand went on playing with the historical fruit-knife, as its owner added: “Work is my play! For change of air, give me change of experience; for change of scene, new cases, or fresh developments of familiar ones. The excitement of the gaming table, or any other form of excitement, would be a poor exchange for the sensations of the operator, the skilled, experienced, unerring operator, who calculates to the fraction of an inch the depth of the incision his scalpel makes in the body of the anæsthetized patient extended on the glass-table before him. Life or Death are his to give, and the trembling of the balance one way or the other is to be guided and controlled by his unerring eye, his unerring brain, and his skilled, infallible hand. He holds the balances of Fate—he guides and controls Destiny, and knows his power and glories in it. He is a supreme artist—not in clay or marble, gold or silver, pigments or enamels—but in living flesh and blood!�
The Bishop shifted in his chair uneasily, and turned a little pale about the gills. The removal of the episcopal appendix some months previously had preserved to the Church of England one of its principal corner-stones; and the neat, red seam underneath the Bishop’s apron on the right side, on the spot that would have been covered by the vest-pocket of an ordinary layman, twitched and tingled. And the King’s Counsel, who had once undergone a minor operation for throat-trouble, hurriedly gulped down a mouthful of port. The Highgate Doctor alone answered, fixing his steel-rimmed pince-nez securely on his nose, and tilting his chin so as to get the host’s face well into focus: “He is a supreme artist, as you say, and he delights in his work. But supposing him to delight too much? Supposing him to have arrived at such a pass that he cannot live without the excitement of it!—that he indulges in the exercise of his beneficent profession as a cocaine-drinker or hashish-eater, or morphinomaniac, indulges in the drug that destroys him, morally and physically—how long will he retain in their perfection the faculties which have made him what he is?�
“As long as he chooses!� said the Distinguished Surgeon, putting down the gold fruit-knife, and rising with the easy air of the well-bred host. “He is no longer a mere man, but a highly-geared and ingeniously-planned machine, in all that concerns the peculiar physical functions brought to bear upon the exercise of his profession. To lie idle, for such a machine, means rust and ruin; to work unceasingly is to increase facility and gain in power, and, provided it be carefully looked after—and I assure you my nuts and bearings receive the necessary amount of attention!—the machine of which I speak may go on practically for ever!� And he ushered his guests through the folding doors into his luxurious consulting-room.
“Unless there happened,� put in the King’s Counsel, “to be a screw loose?�
“My dear fellow,� said the Distinguished Surgeon, with a smile, “my screws are never neglected, I have assured you. The machine won’t come to grief that way!�
“It might come to grief in another way,� said the Highgate Doctor in a queer voice. “The Inventor might stop it Himself, just to prove to His handiwork that it was a machine—and something more!�
At this remark, plopped into the middle of the calm duck-pond of sociality, the Bishop looked pained, as might an elderly spinster of severe morals at an allusion savoring of impropriety. The King’s Counsel, feeling for the Bishop, turned the conversation; but the Distinguished Surgeon and the Highgate Doctor were at it again, hammer and tongs, in a minute.
“I do not simply believe I shall not fail, my dear fellow! I know I shall not! As for——� (the Distinguished Surgeon, sitting smoking in his Louis Quinze consulting-chair, mentioned a certain operation in abdominal surgery, delicate, difficult, and dangerous in the extreme) “I have performed it hundreds of times, successfully, within the last twelvemonth, leaving minor operations—scores of them�—he waved the scores aside with a movement of the supple hand—“entirely out of the question! At the Hospital to-day� (mentioning the name of a great public institution) “I operated in seven cases, bringing up the number to one thousand and one. The last was the most interesting case I have met with for some time, presenting complications rendering the use of the knife both difficult and risky, but——�
The sharp whirring tingle of the telephone bell punctuated the Distinguished Surgeon’s sentence: “But she’ll pull through; I guarantee it! We’ll have the bandages off in three weeks. She’ll be walking about before the month’s out like the others!�