The star and Newark advertiser., 1908-05-25
r AM going to try if I can't write
something about myself My life
has heen rather a strange one. II

respects, adventurous: and that may
give it claims to be read, even In the
most prejudiced circles.
am remarkably well connected, can
tell you. I came into this world with
the great advantage of having Lady
Malkinshaw for a grandmother, her
ladyship's daughter for a mother, and
Francis James Softly. Esq, M D.
commonly called DIR. Softly) for
father. 1 put my father last, because
he was not so well connected as my
mother, and my grandmother first be-
cause she was the most nobly-born
person of the three. I have been, am
still, and may continue to be- a Rogue;
but hope I am not abandoned enough
yet to forget the respect that is due to
rank. On this account, I trust. no
body will show such want of regard
for my feelings as to expect me to say
much about my mothers brother. That
inhuman person committed an outrage
on his family by making a fortune in
the soap and candle trade. I apologize
for mentioning him, even in an acc-
dental way. The fact Is. he left my
sister, Annabella, legacy of rather a
peculiar kind, saddled with certain
conditions which indirectly affected me;
but this passage of family history need
not be produced just yet.
I am rather afraid that DR.. Softly
was not a clever medical man; for in
spite of his great connections, he did
not get a very magnificent practise as
q physician.
AS a general practitioner he might
have bought a comfortable business,
with a house and snug surgery-shop
| attached; but the son-in-law of Lady
| Malkinshaw was Obliged to hold up
| his head. and set up his carriage. and
| live In a street near a fashionable
! square. and keep an expensive and
| clumsy footman to answer the door,
| instead of a cheap and tidy housemaid.
| How he managed to maintain his
| position" Chat is the right phrase,
think. never could tell. His wife did
not bring him a farthing. When the
honorable and gallant baronet. her
father. died, he left the widowed Lady
Malkinshaw with her worldly affairs in
a curiously involved state.
What was to be done with me in the
way of education?
If my father had consulted his means
I should have been sent to a chear
commercial academy; but he had tC
consult his relationship to Lady Nal
kinshaw; so I was sent to one of thu
most fashionable and famous of th'
great public schools. I will not men.
tion 1t by name, because / don't think
the masters would be proud of my
connection with it. I ran away three
times, and was flogged three times
made four aristocratic connections, and
4 had four pitched battles with them;
/ three thrashed me, and one I thrashed
u / learned to play at cricket, to hate
rich people, to cure warts, to write
Latin verses, to swim, to recite
i speeches, to cook kidneys on toast, to
draw caricatures of the masters. tc
construe Greek plays. to black boots
and to receive kicks and serious adj
/ vice resignedly. Who will say that
the fashionable public school was of no
use to me after that?
After I left school, had the mar
rowest escape possible of intruding
myself into another place of accom-
mediation for distinguished people; in
| other words, / was very nearly being
sent to college. Fortunately for me,
my father lost a lawsuit just in the
nick of time, and was obliged to scrape
together every farthing of available
money that he possessed to pay for the
luxury of going to law.
The next thing was to choose pro-
fession.
Here the doctor was liberality itself,
/ in leaving me to my own devices.
was of a rowing adventurous tempera-
ment, and / should have liked to go
| into the army. But where was the
money to come from, to pay for my
| commission? AS to enlisting in the
ranks, and working my way up, the
| social institutions of my country
obliged the grandson of Lady Maxim
| shaw TO begin military life as an Off
Ger and gentleman, or not begin 1t at
| all. The army, therefore, was out OF
| the question. The church? Equally
out of the question; since l could not
pay for admission to the prepared place
of accommodation for distinguished
people. and could not accept a chari-
table free pass, in consequence of my
high connections. The bar? I should
be five years getting to it, and should
have to spend two hundred a year in
going circuit before I had earned a
| farthing Physic? This really seemed
the only gentemanly refuge left; and
yet with the knowledge of my fathers
experience before me, I was ungrateful
enough to feel a secret dislike for it.
It ended in my resigning myself to
the misfortune of being a doctor.
| If / was very good boy and took
| pains, and carefully mixed in the best
society, I might hope in the course OF
years to succeed to my father $
brougham, fashionably- situated house.
and clumsy and expensive footman
There was a prospect for a lad of spirit,
with the blood of the early MallSin-
shaws (who were Rogues of great ca
pacity and distinction in the feudal
times) coursing adventurous through
every veinl look back on my career
and when ] remember the patience
| with which 1 accepted a medical des-
| tiny, I appear to myself in the light OF
a hero. Nay, | even went beyond the
passive virtue of accepting my des-
tiny-I actually studied, l made the
acquaintance of the skeleton. l was
on friendly terms with the muscular
system. and the mysteries of physiology
dropped in on me in the kindest man
ner whenever they had an evening to
spare.
4 Even this was not the worst of It,
/ | disliked the abstruse studies of my
/ new profession; but l absolutely hated
the diurnal slavery of qualifying my.
self, in a social point of view, for fu-
are success in it. My fond medical
! parent insisted on introducing me to
II I