“Wait a moment. You know a lot more about it than that. You’ve no idea how much you know. You know what kind of man he was.”
“Oh, I never saw him complete, you know. I got there a bit late that day, I remember. I’d asked for an arm specially, because I was rather weak in arms, and Watts—that’s the attendant—had promised to save me one.”
“Yes. You have arrived late and found your arm waiting for you. You are dissecting it—taking your scissors and slitting up the skin and pinning it back. Was it very young, fair skin?”
“Oh, no—no. Ordinary skin, I think—with dark hairs on it—yes, that was it.”
“Yes. A lean, stringy arm, perhaps, with no extra fat anywhere?”
“Oh, no—I was rather annoyed about that. I wanted a good, muscular arm, but it was rather poorly developed and the fat got in my way.”
“Yes; a sedentary man who didn’t do much manual work.”
“Yes. You dissected the hand, for instance, and made a drawing of it. You would have noticed any hard calluses.”
“No. But should you say it was a young man’s arm? Firm young flesh and limber joints?”
“No. Middle-aged—with rheumatism. I mean, there was a chalky deposit in the joints, and the fingers were a bit swollen.”
“Yes. There were other students at work on the same body.”
“Yes. And they made all the usual sort of jokes about it.”
“You can remember some of them. Who is your local funny man, so to speak?”
“Over by the instrument cupboard—by sink C.”
“Yes. Get a picture of Tommy Pringle in your mind’s eye.”
“I remember now. Tommy Pringle said the old Sheeny—”
“Perhaps he looked like it. Did you see his head?”
“I don’t know—oh, yes, I do, though. Old Freke bagged the head himself, and little Bouncible Binns was very cross about it, because he’d been promised a head to do with old Scrooger.”
“I see. What was Sir Julian doing with the head?”
“He called us up and gave us a jaw on spinal haemorrhage and nervous lesions.”
Tommy Pringle’s joke was repeated, not without some embarrassment.
“No. The chap who was working with Tommy said that sort of thing came from over-feeding.”
“I deduce that Tommy Pringle’s partner was interested in the alimentary canal.”
“Yes; and Tommy said, if he’d thought they’d feed you like that he’d go to the workhouse himself.”