I had to give way and weep in spite of the presence of the little German. He was very good to me then, and always. I think he then thought that it was a more serious attachment than it was; he chided me for not bidding Laidlaw a more affectionate farewell--could not seem to understand why I did not, since I cared so much about his going. That evening, picking up a copy of Emerson’s essays I had been reading, and seeing it was the essay on Friendship, with a searching look he asked, “And is it only friendship that I see between you and Laidlaw?” When I stoutly maintained that it was, he seemed half credulous, half doubtful, but in his naïve foreign way said appealingly, “Then, Little _Racker_, be _my_ friend, too.” And we were warm friends after that. In a few days came Laidlaw’s first letter; it gave me a thrill of joy, but I am bound to confess that even before it came (after the acuteness of the grief was over) I had grown surprisingly cheerful, so much so that I was ashamed of myself for not continuing to feel as wretched as when he went away. I reproached myself, but all to no purpose. Every day brought its duties; added responsibilities now fell on me; the new interne had to be taught “the ropes”; and, while I missed my good friend at every turn, I could not mope and pine. But I could not understand myself--how such wretchedness, such utter wretchedness, could be so short-lived! A few weeks before my own term of service expired I had a hard time with septic infection--a serious inflammation in my thumb, probably contracted while assisting at an operation. I was tired out, and the thing took a severe hold on me. They temporized for a time, but finally decided I must take an anesthetic and have the nail removed and the deeper tissues thoroughly cleansed. As we were short-handed at the Hospital, I dragged around when I should have been in bed. I shall not soon forget the feeling I had on learning that I had actually to surrender myself to an anesthetic, to submit voluntarily to that which would rob me of consciousness. It was horrible to contemplate. It seemed such a momentous thing--not the operation, of course, but the taking of chloroform. I wrote a letter home the night before, to be posted in case I did not survive. One would have thought my year in the hospital would have made me more callous to such things. I myself can hardly understand why it was so painful to me to face this experience--just like any other patient. Somehow, I had always felt outside of such things, a mere spectator, though considering myself a sympathetic one. But, until then, I had not dreamed what dread consumed the souls of the patients whom I had so lightly encouraged to submit to the inevitable.