say is, spread the Gospels as much as you can, but stop calling England a Christian country. That's the outrage."

Lavis ceased and lit his pipe.

The sun was growing hotter. The scent of thyme came over the grass on a light breeze in warm waves. The larks still sang. The dead rabbit lay where Lavis had dropped it.

They had not gone a hundred yards on their way when they met a shepherd.

"There's a rabbit a stoat's just killed, by that thorn tree," said Lavis.

The shepherd thanked him and went off to get it. "There," said Lavis, "I'm more of a Christian than you after all. You never thought to mention that. A rabbit's a big thing in a shepherd's kitchen.”

CHAPTER XX

THE BEAUTIFUL PINK SLIP

RUDD pursued his medical studies without en

thusiasm but with a certain amount of method. That is to say, he gave them all the time that was left after he had eaten and slept, talked and wandered with Lavis, trifled with efforts at verse, and heard the last comic song at the Mogul.

Any new verses, if they pleased him, he would send to Uncle Ben, and one day Uncle Ben wrote back saying, "Why don't you submit the enclosed to a paper? It is much better than heaps of stuff they print. I notice that The Post-Meridian has verse nearly every day. Why not try that?"

Rudd did so and being a beginner, enclosed a letter deprecating his temerity and depreciating his poem, but hoping for kind consideration.

The next day he woke up aware vaguely of some impending excitement, but unable to remember it. Then he remembered and tingled.

All the morning he was restless, and twice he went round to the nearest station to see if The PostMeridian had come in yet. It hadn't.

Rudd as a rule resented the evening papers arriving on the streets as early as they did; but to-day he thought that The Post-Meridian ought to have more enterprise. Here it was, nearly twelve, and the paper not out yet! An important paper too.

He returned to the Hospital, and in a quarter of an hour was back at the station again.

A pile of Post-Meridians had just been placed on the stall. Rudd tendered his penny with a hand which he did his best to steady, and glanced at the paper with the eager expression of a betting man: instantly passing into a state of rapt bliss, for his poem was before his enraptured gaze.

He was reading his first poem in real professional Luard-approved print!

He blinked and stared. Yes, it was his.

His face flushed with triumph. He began to read it aloud, but remembered where he was.

A comma was wrong, but otherwise the gem was as he wrote it, and the initials "R. S." were at the end.

What a pity he had not had the proof. Not only for that comma, but he could have improved the last couplet. Still how splendid it looked!

He read it again.

Then he bought three more copies, one for Lavis, one for his mother (who would not, however, understand the point of the satire), and one for Uncle Ben.

He wondered if the bookstall men had read it.

"Not bad verses in The Post-Meridian to-day," he half thought of saying to the bookstall man; for why should not pleasure be widely spread? He contented himself, however, with watching the purchasers of the paper to see how they took it. But all were interested in the foolish first page where the trumpery political and other news was. News indeed!

Rudd had said nothing to Lavis about his verses, but before anyone Lavis must know the terrific truth that Rudd was in print in a public paper which had the eccentric habit of remunerating its contributors. Every one can be in print in the other things, The Scalpel and so forth. But Rudd was now a working paid satirist. His first shaft had left the bow. Others would follow. Public men must jolly well look out.

He ran back with The Post-Meridian and began to hunt through the hospital for Lavis. Up and down he tried, but drew blank. Yet that Lavis had not left the precincts old Flanagan the porter had reason to be sure.

And then came the news that Lavis was in the dissecting-room.

The dissecting-room!

All these months Rudd had avoided that horrid place: all these months he had known somewhere in his soul that his aversion from it would never decrease. Then how be a doctor? That was just it; that was the problem which had vexed him continuously, although now, of course, it was negligible, since from this morning he had the journalistic ball at his

feet. But even though the room was receding so rapidly as a necessity in his career, he could not bring himself even now, just for one final visit, to enter it. There was something about it . .

He sent word by Flanagan that he must see Lavis at once, and would be waiting for him in the reading

room.

The porter returned with the message that Mr. Lavis couldn't possibly leave what he was doing for two hours, and so would Mr. Sergison go down to him?

Rudd had never confided to Lavis his dread of the dissection branch of the curriculum: for he was not given to parade his timidities. To refuse to go down. now would be impossible.

He pulled himself together and descended with the epoch-making paper in his hand. He opened the door, and was conscious of Lavis all alone at the end of a long room, with slabs in it. Lavis was dressed in an overall and was bending over something shapeless and brown. The air was thick with a sour smell. Rudd took a few steps into the room, felt a violent nausea, and bolted.

A poor end to his triumph.

Outside the door he took in some fresh air and leaned against the wall. An icy sweat broke out on his forehead. How absurd to be so sensitive and squeamish over things like one's self too-but with the life out of them! He really must make another