account of extremities whose minute structure he has deeply investigated
(in his head), and received in return various sums of money from home for
the avowed purpose of paying for them. If he really has put his name down
for any heads and necks or pelvic viscera at the commencement of the
season, when he had imbibed and cherished some lunatic idea "that
dissection was the sheet-anchor of safety at the College," he becomes a
trafficker in human flesh, and disposes of them as quickly as he can to
any hard-working man who has his examination in perspective.

He now assumes a more independent air, and even ventures to chalk odd
figures on the black board in the theatre. He has been known, previously
to the lecture, to let down the skeleton that hangs by a balance weight
from the ceiling, and, inserting its thumb in the cavity of its nose, has
there secured it with a piece of thread, and then, placing a short pipe in
its jaws, has pulled it up again. His inventive faculties are likewise
shown by various diverting objects and allusions cut with his knife upon
the ledge before him in the lecture-room, whereon the new men rest their
note-books and the old ones go to sleep. In vain do the directors of the
school order the ledge to be coated with paint and sand mixed
together--nothing is proof against his knife; were it adamant he would cut
his name upon it. His favourite position at lecture is now the extremity
of the bench, where its horse-shoe form places him rather out of the range
of the lecturer's vision; and, ten to one, it is here that he has cut a
cribbage-board on the seat, at which he and his neighbour play during the
lecture on Surgery, concealing their game from common eyes by spreading a
mackintosh cape on the desk before them. His conversation also gradually
changes its tone, and instead of mildly inquiring of the porter, on his
entering the school of a morning, what is for the day's anatomical
demonstration, he talks of "the regular lark he had last night at the
Eagle, and how jolly screwed he got!"--a frank admission, which bespeaks