I hold that we should only affect compassion, and carefully avoid having any; it is a passion that is perfectly useless in a well-constituted mind, serving but to weaken the heart, and being only fit for common people, who, never acting by the rules of reason, are in want of passions to stimulate them to action.—La Rochefoucauld.

Walter Mole was assistant to Mr. Crowe in his laboratory. He was twenty two years of age when he entered St. Bernard’s. He was the youngest son of a speculative builder in the West of England, who having made a fortune by erecting many streets of stucco-fronted villa residences (built on ground the gravel of which he had dug out and sold and replaced with the contents of the dust-bins of the town), was ambitious to settle his sons in life in the learned professions. He tried hard to make his eldest a clergyman, but as he lacked the ability even to conceal his evil habits, he sank back to the gutter from which it was impossible to raise him, and followed the entirely congenial calling of a billiard marker. The aspiring parent still determining to make capital out of evil and unpleasant things, sent his smart, pushing little cad of a son Walter to St. Bernard’s, to bring honour to the family name as a surgeon. Mr. Walter Mole was a very diminutive specimen of humanity, making up however in conceit, as is often the case, what he lacked in inches. Mr. Mole was a young man of aspirations. Sharp at his books, he had done so well at the cheap boarding school where he had got his education, that he had no difficulty in passing the examination in arts required by the very moderate ideas of the Apothecaries’ Society of London. By industry and a plodding perseverance, combined with an intense desire to elevate himself in the social ladder, he ingratiated himself in the favour of the Professor of Anatomy, who made him a “demonstrator,” a kind of anatomical pupil teacher. He won the scholarship in anatomy and physiology; by constant practice he acquired a nice dexterity with his fingers, and his dissections were so accurate and careful that many of them were honoured with places in the college museum. Now Mr. Mole, although popular with the lecturers, was detested by the men. He was, in the first place, not a gentleman; everything he said or did proclaimed him “Cad.” His oily hair, and still more oily tongue; his dirty finger-nails and dirtier ideas; his paper collars and imitation jewellery; his low money-grubbing propensities; his scheming cunning to win the favour of those who could help him, and his insolent contempt of those whom he considered to be beneath him in position, made him detested by the men of the school who were unfortunate enough to have to associate with him. To thrash him was of no use. Who could fight such a contemptible object? So all sorts of tricks were played upon him, which he resented in his own way; and as he had much influence with the authorities, his resentment was not always to be despised. As he did a good deal of money-lending at exorbitant interest, he was always able to secure the favour of the very considerable section of the men who were in his debt. Such a man can always hold his own, and Mr. Mole held his at St. Bernard’s, and was not to be put down. If popular dislike could exterminate—say—toads, how few would be left! And as toads must have some use in the economy of nature, there is no knowing what disarrangements of her plans their disappearance might effect. There was possibly some use for Mr. Mole, or “Molly Cular,” as he was usually called. He acquired this epithet from a mispronunciation in his early days at the hospital of the term “molecular,” and the nickname stuck to him even when he became house surgeon. His eye was as quick as his hands were dexterous, and as Jack Murphy used to say, “Mole was cut out for a pick-pocket, but spoiled in the making.” When assisting the lecturers he never failed to detect the larking student who was causing all the uproar, and many were the men who lost marks and favour by the watchful supervision of Demonstrator Mole. His sensitiveness to ridicule served to improve his taste, and he gradually acquired correctness of pronunciation and much general knowledge from sheer dread of the suffering he would have to undergo if caught in the slightest mistake. He had endured so much for dropping his h’s that he fell into the opposite error of a too liberal use of the aspirate. He so economized the truth that he never used it unnecessarily, and was as sparing of it as of his money, though probably not for the same reasons. Of course he scoffed at religion as something beneath the notice of an advanced scientist, and was never more in his element than when shocking some pious pupil by a coarse joke twisted out of Biblical language, or a metaphor which was perverted from a sacred subject. His familiarity with Holy Writ enabled him to shock a great many good people, and amuse some evil ones; but even they were few, as it is rightly considered the mark of a vulgar mind to make fun of any man’s faith. This habit ultimately caused complaints to be made of him to the college board, and he was cautioned that he must abandon it if he expected advancement. Hating religion, which was a constant rebuke to all he loved best, he threw himself with renewed zest into the pursuit of science, which was too cold to reproach him with anything, and he determined to win respect for services rendered to physiology which he could scarcely hope could be conceded for anything else within his reach. He was not loved; he determined to be respected. Soon he found his opportunity. A skilful and patient worker at the microscope, he earned much favour and profit from Mr. Crowe by his admirable pathological work. Many thousands of beautiful sections and other objects in the microscope room were the result of Mr. Mole’s deft labours in this direction. He became indispensable in the physiological room, and the constant attendant on the researches of his master. There was a common sentiment which drew these men together. Both feeling that the world did not love them for themselves sought to compel admiration for their achievements. Both were essentially cruel at heart; both would not only have gladly botanized on their mother’s graves to discover anything to win them credit, but would have learned with pleasure anything they could from the sufferings of their dearest relations. Mr. Mole took care that his chief never ran short of dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, mice, or frogs, for use at the tables and troughs. To show his devotion to this work he even gave up a worn-out retriever which had saved his life a few years before by arousing him from sleep when his chamber was on fire. What greater proof of devotion to one’s work could be demanded than this? But he would have done even more to win favour with Mr. Crowe. Had he not been introduced by him with high encomiums to several learned medical societies, and had not his early attempts at writing for the scientific journals been aided by his counsel? Such a friend was worth a dog or two. He laboured at first, above all things, to win Mr. Crowe’s favour; then, as the work began to be familiar, he embraced it with an ever-increasing love. It did not give Mr. Mole much difficulty to rid himself of the outside prejudice against causing needless suffering to sentient beings, though when he first began, it was not with the “true spirit of the artist” that he approached his work. But this came in time, and now not alone on Mr. Crowe’s account, but for its own sake, this laboratory business took hold of every fibre of his being. He revelled in it; he spent in it his nights as well as his days. His Sundays were specially devoted to the more private, revolting, and awful exercises which Mr. Crowe would only share with priests of the inner temple of science. Here one vied with another who could do the most startling things, who could invent newer forms of torture.