Of course it was given out that the great man was to operate (that was a precaution always taken) the teachers never shirked any responsibility, their backs were broad enough for everything, and when the anæsthetic had done its work,“who was to know? That’s the beauty of chloroform,” said Wilson. “_Qui facit per alium, facit per se_,” added the professor,“that is an axiom in law and that must be right!” So the bell was rung that called the students to assemble in the theatre where the operations took place, and all was ready. Mr. Wilson was not quite easy in his mind; his conscience told him he was sacrificing this Irish labourer’s chance of preserving his injured limb (and that limb meant so much more to him and his than to a rich man) to his own advancement in the surgeon’s art. But that conscience was soon silenced. He had learned how to crush out all feelings of pity that interfered with his “work” long ago in the physiological room. He was tender, kind, and a lover of the lower animals when he began his course there, when he first obeyed the order of his teacher to slice off a piece of a living frog’s eye and rub lunar caustic on the injured organ. He shuddered when the professor said: “It won’t be nice for the frog, but it will be useful to you!” But he shuddered less next time, and when he had conquered his aversion to the torture of living dogs which licked his hands before he began, it was not difficult to do any work in the operating theatre on human beings which science might demand. “So patients must suffer that surgeons may learn, And women must weep when their husbands return With their limbs left behind at St. Bernard’s.” And he whistled merrily to think how his capital operation had come in the nick of time. * * * * * Poor Pat was quite resigned; he had obeyed the voice of the Church; and Faith bade him reflect that God would look after his family when he went out with a wooden leg and his calling gone in this life. It is not absolutely certain that this mediæval attitude of mind is so very inferior to that of the free and independent Protestant way of looking at things, after all. Patrick Flynn’s day-book and ledger would not make a bad figure when the auditing angel came along, notwithstanding his complete ignorance of any learning save his rosary and the non-possession of the key of his own conscience. “I could have saved that leg if it had been my case,” said Senior Surgeon Bishop after the operation; “but it would have been hard on Wilson to make him lose his chance.”