“Come, old boy,” said the first speaker, approaching our hero, who, stretched upon a sofa, was looking in the fire with a drunken stare. “Come, we’ll be too late.” Dudley mechanically started to his feet, drank a quantity of brandy, and rushing forward, was caught by two of his brother students, and the whole party left the house together, laughing, chatting, whistling and singing, they wended their way toward the medical college. Dudley Fletcher, as his comrades afterward remarked, was unusually silent and even morose. Arriving at the college, the party mounted long fights of dark stairs ending in a door, that one of them unlocked and threw open, and all entered the dissecting-room. The janitor had left a bright coal-fire sputtering in the stove, and save this no other light fell upon the ghastly gloom. The large, square windows were open, as gusts of wind making the fire roar indicated, but in spite of this a dreadful, sickening odor of decay filled the room. Several lamps were lighted, and then the frightful reality became apparent. Upon either side of a large room were placed narrow tables, on each of which lay a specimen of the desecrated dead; over the floor were scattered limbs strangely mutilated, bones with particles of flesh yet hanging to them, snow-white skeletons and grinning skulls. Upon the table nearer the fire was the body of a man lately hung. The frame was heavy and muscular, but the head presented the most awful sight the heart of man ever shuddered over. It was one swollen mass of purple blood, while around the neck lay a red line where the cruel cord had sunk in and disappeared from the force of the struggling weight. He had been found guilty of a fiendish murder, yet no heart could look on this and not shudder at the punishment. Why do the students leave this table and crowd around the next? Why hold up their lights and gaze in breathless awe? Do youth and innocence carry admiration and respect with them to the charnel-house? They whisper as they gaze upon the gentle form, so beautiful and still, that with wild hair disheveled seems to sleep upon the rude couch of death. Where is Dudley—why does he not gaze and whisper too? Upon entering the room he threw himself upon a low seat behind the stove, and falling from that to the floor, sleeps soundly in his drunkenness. Star-eyed Science walks unmoved among the dead. The students are busy about the table of the murderer. Nothing is heard save the voice of the instructor, or noise of his instruments as he lays bare the hidden mysteries of life. Dudley sleeps on. The fire burns down—the candles, flickering in the wind, are dim—the lesson is over. Putting out their lights, the students gather their coats and cloaks about them and leave. The last one is gone. The janitor, casting a hasty look at the fire, goes with them. The great bolt is shot into its place—the door is locked, and Dudley, forgotten and alone, sleeps on!