The star and Newark advertiser., 1908-05-25
FROM SEASIDE LIBRARY EDITION PERMISSION OF GEO. MURos SONS

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stethoscope and medical review in tho
front pocket, with DIR. Softly by my
side, keeping his face well in view at
the window-to canvass for patients, in
the character of my fathers hopeful
successor. Never have been SO i'll at
ease in prison, as was in that car
riage. have felt more at home in the
dock (such is the natural depravity
and perversity of my disposition) than
ever felt in the drawing-rooms of my
fathers distinguished patrons and re-
spectacle friends. Nor did my miseries
end with the morning calls. was
commanded to attend all dinner parties,
and to make myself agreeable at all
balls. The dinners were the worst
trial
suppose that honest people, who
have known what 1t is to get no
dinner (being Rogue, I have my
self never wanted for one), have
gone through some very acute suffering
under that privation. 1t may be some
consolation to them to know that, next
to absolute starvation, the same COM
pany-dinner, every day, is one of the
hardest trials that assai human en-
duranee. ] date my first serious deter
mination to throw over the medical
profession at the earliest convenient OPP
portunity, from the second seasons
| series of dinners at which my aspira-
tions, as rising physician, unavoidably
and regularly condemned me to be
present.
CHAPTER II.
lTH HE opportunity wanted pre-
! III sented itself in a curious way,
and led, Unexpectedly enough,
to some rather important consequences.
| have already stated, among the
| other branches of human attainment
which l acquired at the public school,
that 1 learned to draw caricatures OF
the masters who were so obliging as to
educate me. had a natural faculty
for this useful department of art. I
improved it greatly by practise in secret
after left school, and ended by maxi
Ing 1t source of profit and pocket
money to me when 1 entered the medi-
cal profession.
I was first assured of my capacity
by medical friend of the ripe criti-
/ cal age of 10. He knew a print-pub-
Usher, and enthusiastically showed him
a portfolio full of my sketches. taking
care at my request not to mention my
name. Rather to my surprise (for 1
was too conceited to be greatly
amazed by the circumstance, the pub
Usher picked out few of the best of
my wares, and boldly bought them Of
me-of course, at his own price From
that tfmt became, in an anonymous
way, one of the young buccaneers of
: British Caricature; cruising about here.
there and everywhere, at all my inter-
walls of spare time, for any prize in the
shape of a subject which it was possi-
BILE to pick up. Little did my highly
connected mother think that, among
the colored prints in the shop window,
which disrespectfully illustrated the
public and private proceedings of dis
tinguished individuals, certain speci-
mems bearing the classic signature of
'Thersites Junior" were produced from
designs furnished by her studious and
medical son. Little did my respectable
father imagine when. with great diff.
Guilty ard vexation, he succeeded in
I getting me now and then smuggfed,
along with himself, inside the pale of
fashionable society-that he was help
ing me to study likenesses which were
destined under my reckless treatment
to make the public laugh at some of
his most august patrons and to fill the
pockets of his son with professional
fees, never once dreamed of in his phi
losophy.
For more than year I managed. un-s
suspected, to keep the Priyy Purse
fairly supplied by the exercise of my
4 caricaturing abilities But the day of
detection was to come.
Whether my medical friends adraira-
tion of my satirical- sketches led him
to- lit. ~..fAJ
too little reserve; or whether the SER
wants at home found private means
of watching me in my moments of
art-study, I know not; but that
some one betrayed me, and that
4 the discovery of my illicit manu-
facture of caricatures was. actually
communicated even 70 the grand
motherly head and fount of the family
honor, is most certain and lamentable
matter of fact One morning my father
| received a letter from Lady Malkin-
shaw herself informing him, in a hand
writing crooked with poignant grief,
and blotted at every third word by the
violence of virtuous Indignation, that
'"Thersites Junior" was his own son,
and that. in one of the last of the
"ribald's" caricatures her own vener-
able features were Enthusiastically repre-
sented as belonging to the body of
large owll
OF course, I laid my hand on my
heart and Indignantly denied every
thing. Useless. My original model for
the owl had got proofs of my guilt that
were not to be resisted.
The doctor, ordinarily the most null
li1uous and self possessed of men, flew
into a violent, roaring, cnIrsing passion
4 on this ccasion--declared / was inn
/ periling the honor and standing of the
family-insisted on my never drawing
another caricature. either for public or
private purposes, as long as | lived;
and ordered me to go forthwith and
ask pardon of Lady Malknshaw in the
humblest terms that it was possible TO
select. 1 answered dutifully that I was
quite ready to obey, on the condition
that he should reimburse me by a
trebled allowance for what 1 should
lose by giving UP the art of carfcature,
or that Lady Malkinshaw should confer
ON me the appointment of physician-in-
waiting on her, with a handsome salary
attached. These extremely moderate
stipulations so Increased my fathers
anger that he asserted. with an un-
ILL.,