2.  Do not drink too much stout before you go in, with the idea that it will give you pluck.  It renders you very valiant for half an hour and then muddles your notions with indescribable confusion.

3.  Having arrived at the Hall, put your rings and chains in your pocket, and, if practicable, publish a pair of spectacles.  This will endow you with a grave look.

4.  On taking your place at the table, if you wish to gain time, feign to be intensely frightened.  One of the examiners will then rise to give you a tumbler of water, which you may, with good effect, rattle tremulously against your teeth when drinking.  This may possibly lead them to excuse bad answers on the score of extreme nervous trepidation.

5.  Should things appear to be going against you, get up a hectic cough, which is easily imitated, and look acutely miserable, which you will probably do without trying.

6.  Endeavour to assume an off-hand manner of answering; and when you have stated any pathological fact—­right or wrong—­stick to it; if they want a case for example, invent one, “that happened when you were an apprentice in the country.”  This assumed confidence will sometimes bother them.  We knew a student who once swore at the Hall, that he gave opium in a case of concussion of the brain, and that the patient never required anything else.  It was true—­he never did.

7.  Should you be fortunate enough to pass, go to your hospital next day and report your examination, describing it as the most extraordinary ordeal of deep-searching questions ever undergone.  This will make the professors think well of you, and the new men deem yon little less than a mental Colossus.  Say, also, “you were complimented by the Court.”  This advice is, however, scarcely necessary, as we never know a student pass who was not thus honoured—­according to his own account.

* * * * *

All things being arranged to his satisfaction, he deposits his papers under the care of Mr. Sayer, and passes the interval before the fatal day much in the same state of mind as a condemned criminal.  At last Thursday arrives, and at a quarter to four, any person who takes the trouble to station himself at the corner of Union-street will see various groups of three and four young men wending their way towards the portals of Apothecaries’ Hall, consisting of students about to be examined, accompanied by friends who come down with them to keep up their spirits.  They approach the door, and shake hands as they give and receive wishes of success.  The wicket closes on the candidates, and their friends adjourn to the “Retail Establishment” opposite, to go the odd man and pledge their anxious companions in dissector’s diet-drink—­vulgo, half-and-half.