— known as Maze Pond Terrace a short shadow-flecked street arched by feathery trees, its perspective melting into a mist of leaves. I hope that its stretches of trees, shrubbery, and vines, their roots fast in the garden adjoining the "Ship and Shovel" and in the spaces surrounding Guy's Hospital, were as lovely in the days of that delightful young reprobate as they are now, but I cannot say. The tree trunks are not so very large; the limbs and branches not so very long; the foliage does not. grow so very high all necessary data in determining the age of a tree. These may, in fact, be only the grandchildren of the trees under which Bob walked, victims of their surroundings, their limbs sawed off like those of many another unfortunate housed in the hospital grounds. It may be, too, that the exquisite shimmering vista of leaf and branch is only a kind of modern scientific growth, a sort of horticultural lobster-claw evolved out of the loss of its predecessor, and therefore all the fresher and greener, with more gleam and glint and grace of movement than the trees we see in most of the streets of smoke-choked London. The landlord at the "Ship and Shovel," who had been catering for the doctors' mess for years before he moved over and took charge of 1 the inn, did not know, as he explained in answer to my inquiry - he had found me at work and at once became friendly and conversational. He had never taken much notice of the trees, but if I would step inside here he winked meaningly he had some "particular old port" that he thought would warm the inner side of my shirt-front. It had had that effect on every doctor who had been graduated from Guy's these last thirty years, and did yet, for they all came back to see him. He would open a bottle if I would permit him, and serve it in the little room off the bar, and on the very table on whose top had been cut, with their own penknives, the names of hundreds of distinguished surgeons the world over. I blew a spray of fixative from my atomiser over my charcoal drawing, unshackled my easel, and followed him into a little, kilndried, elbow-and-trouser-seat-polished cubbyroom, just big enough for a small table and a dozen encircling chairs. Here, the bottle uncorked, he called my attention to the surgical operations performed on the table top; to the half dozen of old English mezzotints from drawings made of London Bridge during its construction, in 1830; and to the various souvenirs in the way of mugs, old china, and sil houettes of the several sawbones who had enjoyed his hospitality in this little ten-bytwelve box of a room. Later on, as I sipped the port — and very good port it was (1849)—I scanned the cuts and scars of the table itself, and, not finding either the first name or initials of my friend Mr. Sawyer carved in its top, asked the landlord in all seriousness if he had ever met the distinguished man, a habit one falls into when engaged in my kind of a still hunt. He pursed his lips, consulted the ceiling, asked the full name, gave a cursory glance at the mutilated table top, as if to refresh his memory with the signatures, and remarked: “I think I remember him but I ain't quite sure we had a fellow here with a red head named Sawyer, drank Scotch whisky mixed with his beer went to Australia, I heard. But maybe he's another man." "That's very curious," I remarked in a hurt, sad way, drawing the bottle closer and refilling my glass. "I thought everybody knew Mr. Sawyer - everybody about Guy's. He graduated, of course, a good many years ago, but I can think of no medical man of his time who is so well known. I come from America, and his reputation has followed him there." The landlord became interested and, I think, a little ashamed of his memory, unlocked a drawer, took from it a well-thumbed, inkstained account-book, and began running his finger down the index. "S. Oh, yes-S-! Sawyer, did you say. What's his first name?" "Robert." "Well, it would be under the 'S'—" The finger-nail, guided by the knuckle-joint, had now reached the bottom of the page. "No, it isn't here. Odd, too." "What book is that?" I ventured. "Oh, just a sort of log-book where I keep my accounts. When they pay I check 'em off. Some of them run along five years or more. Got three pounds ten from New Zealand last week. Thought the man was dead. Sawyer, did you say? Robert Sawyer. Maybe he is a lord by this time. Anyhow, if he had paid back what he owed he would be in this book." "Don't look any further, my friend," I said -"not in a book of that kind. I am very sorry to have troubled you. The door opened and one of Bob's fellow students blew in an admirable expression when I consider the breeze he brought with him. "This gentleman is inquiring about a man named Sawyer," blurted out the landlord. "Says everybody in the United States has heard of him." Two eyes receded under two knitted eyebrows and a firm, set mouth became expressive of deepest thought. "Sawyer Sawyer-never heard of him. Before my time, I expect." Then he glanced at the bottle. "Some of the old stuff, Henry? Don't care if I do." And he did. And so did the landlord. |