They settled that Philip should fetch Cronshaw next day, and Philip snatched an hour from his busy morning to arrange the change.  He found Cronshaw dressed, sitting in his hat and great-coat on the bed, with a small, shabby portmanteau, containing his clothes and books, already packed:  it was on the floor by his feet, and he looked as if he were sitting in the waiting-room of a station.  Philip laughed at the sight of him.  They went over to Kennington in a four-wheeler, of which the windows were carefully closed, and Philip installed his guest in his own room.  He had gone out early in the morning and bought for himself a second-hand bedstead, a cheap chest of drawers, and a looking-glass.  Cronshaw settled down at once to correct his proofs.  He was much better.

Philip found him, except for the irritability which was a symptom of his disease, an easy guest.  He had a lecture at nine in the morning, so did not see Cronshaw till the night.  Once or twice Philip persuaded him to share the scrappy meal he prepared for himself in the evening, but Cronshaw was too restless to stay in, and preferred generally to get himself something to eat in one or other of the cheapest restaurants in Soho.  Philip asked him to see Dr. Tyrell, but he stoutly refused; he knew a doctor would tell him to stop drinking, and this he was resolved not to do.  He always felt horribly ill in the morning, but his absinthe at mid-day put him on his feet again, and by the time he came home, at midnight, he was able to talk with the brilliancy which had astonished Philip when first he made his acquaintance.  His proofs were corrected; and the volume was to come out among the publications of the early spring, when the public might be supposed to have recovered from the avalanche of Christmas books.

LXXXIV

At the new year Philip became dresser in the surgical out-patients’ department.  The work was of the same character as that which he had just been engaged on, but with the greater directness which surgery has than medicine; and a larger proportion of the patients suffered from those two diseases which a supine public allows, in its prudishness, to be spread broadcast.  The assistant-surgeon for whom Philip dressed was called Jacobs.  He was a short, fat man, with an exuberant joviality, a bald head, and a loud voice; he had a cockney accent, and was generally described by the students as an `awful bounder’; but his cleverness, both as a surgeon and as a teacher, caused some of them to overlook this.  He had also a considerable facetiousness, which he exercised impartially on the patients and on the students.  He took a great pleasure in making his dressers look foolish.  Since they were ignorant, nervous, and could not answer as if he were their equal, this was not very difficult.  He enjoyed his afternoons, with the home truths he permitted himself, much more than the students who had to put up with them with a smile.  One day a case came up of a boy with a club-foot.  His parents wanted to know whether anything could be done.  Mr. Jacobs turned to Philip.