THE TOOK MAN'S DOCTOR. I.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 31, 2 August 1900, Page 23

THE TOOK MAN'S DOCTOR. I.

We never thought much of him when we were all fellow-students together at St. Chad's Hospital. Poor old Parkes he was generally called; and by those who knew him best, poor old Tom. He was Buch a funny, original sort of fellow —a queer mingling of the casual and the hard-working. His figure was familiar to more than one set of St. Chad's students, for he spent an abnormal time in getting through his exams., and, as he used to say ruefully : ' I'm Buch a fool of a fellow, things seem to go in at one of my ears and out at the other. I can't for the life of me remember the names of them.' An examination drove every scrap of knowledge he possessed straight out of his head. It paralysed him, and he was the despair of his teachers and examiners. Indeed, it was several times more than hinted to him that he might be wiser in adopting some other than the medical profession, but he always shook his head over buch a proposition. 11 just won't give it up. It's the finest profession in the world, and I'm goiug to stick to it.' When I left the hospital he was still plodding on patiently and hopefully. He came sometimes to my rooms in the daya before I left and poured out his aims and ideals to me. I don't exactly know why he chose me for his confidant, except that I had tried to be friendly now and then to the poor fellow. It seemed hard lines that he should be so universally looked down upon and laughed at. He bad some awfully lofty notion about a doctor's work. 1 can see him now as he stood on my hearth rug talking fast and eagerly about the moral influence a doctor ought to have over his patients, and I couldn't help wondering what sort of influence poor old Tom would have over his patients if he ever got any. He did not look a very impressive object in those dayg. He was always rather an untidy sort of chap. His clothes hung upon his loose, shambling figure a little as if he were a clothes prop ; his hair —it was red —had a way of falling loosely over his forehead, which gave him a habit of tossing back his head to bhake a straying lock from his eyes. He had no beauty to recommend him. His eyes were green and they were not handsome, though their prevailing expression was one of good temper and kindliness. His smile was wide and kindly, but eomehow his whole countenance bordered closely on the grotesque, and the more he talked of ideals and lofty aspirations, the more acutely did he tickle one's inward sense of humor. Tom's talk and his personality did not fit well. I left him behind me at St. Chad's, as I say, when my hospital days were over. I carried away with mc a vivid recollection of the grip of his big red hand as he said 'Good-bye, Marlow. I say, I wish you weren't ymng, yOUyOU know. You've —you've been jolly good to me.' There was a queer look of wistfulness in his eyes. It reminded me of the look in the eyes of my Irish terrier when I left him behind me. ' Poor old Tom,' I said to myself ; ' I'll come back and look him up now and then. He's such a lonely sort of chap.' I'm sorry now that I didn't stick to my resolution, but other interests soon filled my life, and I forgot to look Tom Parkeb up, or even to ask him to come and see me. Then I left town, and shortly afterwards England, and for eight years or so I did not set foot in London.