Cheerfully
would I have shown her that if the handles were inferior the steel was
quite serviceable, but I swallowed my wrath and solemnly explained that
it was not medical etiquette for a young doctor to use ivory.
Beginning to despair, I applied for one or two minor appointments in
answer to advertisements inserted by the Board of Guardians and other
public bodies. In each case was I not only unsuccessful, but men equally
unknown, though with a greatly inferior college and hospital record,
were chosen over my head. At length, suspecting that I was not being
fairly dealt by, I made inquiries to discover that at the bottom of all
this ill success was none other than Sir John Bell. It appeared that in
several instances, by the shrugs of his thick shoulders and shakes of
his ponderous head, he had prevented my being employed. Indeed, in the
case of the public bodies, with all of which he had authority either
as an official or as an honorary adviser, he had directly vetoed my
appointment by the oracular announcement that, after ample inquiry among
medical friends in London, he had satisfied himself that I was not a
suitable person for the post.
When I had heard this and convinced myself that it was substantially
true--for I was always too cautious to accept the loose and unsifted
gossip of a provincial town--I think that for the first time in my life
I experienced the passion of hate towards a human being.
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