Jim had visited many a music-hall in the company of Koko, the red-haired student at Matt’s, and others, and had frequently watched the skilful gyrations of trained ballet-dancers, but it seemed to him that this queer little dance, with the heavens for a roof and a muddy wood-block road for a floor, was a much better dance than any he had seen in a music-hall. The organ played a merry tune--full of straightforward melody--and Jim was quite infected with it. He began to wonder when he had last danced--when he would dance again. And meanwhile he watched the little maids, and smiled at the earnest way in which they tripped in and out among each other, quite in the proper style and order; and he gave a shilling to the Italian woman who came round to collect. As Jim listened to the music and watched the dainty steps of the little street dancers, he felt genuinely happy. The scene pleased him; it chased the wistfulness from his face, and he felt loth to continue his walk homewards. He was interested. These people around him were his people now; these people were his patients. Poor they were--starving, some of them--and he was their doctor. Had matters fallen out otherwise, it would have been his destiny to attend a very different class of patient. He would, in all probability, have assisted his grandfather--have ridden a horse, worn the best of clothes, and eaten and drunk "like a lord." He would have hunted and shot, and lived the life of a country gentleman, with just enough work to do to prevent himself from experiencing ennui. But instead of that he was fighting for an existence in Mount Street--among the poorest of the poor. No hunting, no shooting, no old port; it was grim fighting in Mount Street--hard work and a hard life--hardly earned money and money hard to get, even when he had earned it. Still, he reflected, he _lived_. It was life--he lived strenuously. He was working in the heart of the greatest city in the world; he was living a man’s life. Wasn’t this, after all, better than lolling round a ready-made practice? Of course, that was good work, useful work--but this work in Mount Street was on a different plane. It was sheer fighting, and Jim, being a "scrapper" by nature, was filled with a feeling of fierce joy. He knew that he had played the fool, and that this was the penalty. But it was a penalty of a mixed kind, for it was a test which he relished. It was a test which would have knocked out a weak man, but Jim felt that he was getting a firmer foothold every day he trod the grimy pavement leading to his surgery. Presently the little girls stopped--panting--and the organ-grinder dropped his handle. It was time he moved on. So it was over, and Jim found himself feeling sorry. The other onlookers strolled away, and Jim was turning down the by-street, when he felt a touch on his arm, and looked round to find Dora Maybury by his side. *CHAPTER XVII.*