The doctor put his great hand solemnly on his young friend’s shoulder. “The medical schools in that country are recovering their past reputation,” he said. “They are becoming active centres of physiological inquiry. You will be dragged into it, to a dead certainty. They’re sure to try what they can strike out by collision with a man like you. What will become of that overworked mind of yours, when a lot of professors are searching it without mercy? Have you ever been to Canada?”
“No. Have you?”
“I have been everywhere. Canada is just the place for you, in this summer season. Bracing air; and steady-going doctors who leave the fools in Europe to pry into the secrets of Nature. Thousands of miles of land, if you like riding. Thousands of miles of water, if you like sailing. Pack up, and go to Canada.”
What did all this mean? Was he afraid that his colleague might stumble on some discovery which he was in search of himself? And did the discovery relate to his own special subject of brains and nerves? Ovid made an attempt to understand him.
“Tell me something about yourself, Benjulia,” he said. “Are you returning to your regular professional work?”
Benjulia struck his bamboo stick emphatically on the gravel-walk. “Never! Unless I know more than I know now.”
This surely meant that he was as much devoted to his chemical experiments as ever? In that case, how could Ovid (who knew nothing of chemical experiments) be an obstacle in the doctor’s way? Baffled thus far, he made another attempt at inducing Benjulia to explain himself.
“When is the world to hear of your discoveries?” he asked.
The doctor’s massive forehead gathered ominously into a frown, “Damn the world!” That was his only reply.
Ovid was not disposed to allow himself to be kept in the dark in this way. “I suppose you are going on with your experiments?” he said.