Hill experienced a sudden loss of complacency at this question, but even as it was asked, relief came in the person of Brooks, the laboratory attendant, who entered by the preparation-room door, carrying a number of freshly killed guinea-pigs by their hind legs.  “This is the last batch of material this session,” said the youngster who had not previously spoken.  Brooks advanced up the laboratory, smacking down a couple of guinea-pigs at each table.  The rest of the class, scenting the prey from afar, came crowding in by the lecture theatre door, and the discussion perished abruptly as the students who were not already in their places hurried to them to secure the choice of a specimen.  There was a noise of keys rattling on split rings as lockers were opened and dissecting instruments taken out.  Hill was already standing by his table, and his box of scalpels was sticking out of his pocket.  The girl in brown came a step towards him, and, leaning over his table, said softly, “Did you see that I returned your book, Mr. Hill?”

During the whole scene she and the book had been vividly present in his consciousness; but he made a clumsy pretence of looking at the book and seeing it for the first time.  “Oh, yes,” he said, taking it up.  “I see.  Did you like it?”

“I want to ask you some questions about it—­some time.”

“Certainly,” said Hill.  “I shall be glad.”  He stopped awkwardly.  “You liked it?” he said.

“It’s a wonderful book.  Only some things I don’t understand.”

Then suddenly the laboratory was hushed by a curious, braying noise.  It was the demonstrator.  He was at the blackboard ready to begin the day’s instruction, and it was his custom to demand silence by a sound midway between the “Er” of common intercourse and the blast of a trumpet.  The girl in brown slipped back to her place:  it was immediately in front of Hill’s, and Hill, forgetting her forthwith, took a notebook out of the drawer of his table, turned over its leaves hastily, drew a stumpy pencil from his pocket, and prepared to make a copious note of the coming demonstration.  For demonstrations and lectures are the sacred text of the College students.  Books, saving only the Professor’s own, you may—­it is even expedient to—­ignore.

Hill was the son of a Landport cobbler, and had been hooked by a chance blue paper the authorities had thrown out to the Landport Technical College.  He kept himself in London on his allowance of a guinea a week, and found that, with proper care, this also covered his clothing allowance, an occasional waterproof collar, that is; and ink and needles and cotton, and such-like necessaries for a man about town.  This was his first year and his first session, but the brown old man in Landport had already got himself detested in many public-houses by boasting of his son, “the Professor.”  Hill was a vigorous youngster, with a serene contempt for the clergy of all denominations, and a fine ambition to reconstruct