human
But medicine--that's healing the sick. That's going about----
gpt
It's that, and that I accept, that I desire too, but it's more, Ben, it's study. Mr. Welland says a doctor must remain a student or die on his feet. And the study is not only sickness, remedies, surgery, the study is human beings--men, women, children, in all their ways--and _that_ I desire. He smiled suddenly, vulnerably, holding up his little finger.
human
There are creatures so tiny--Mr. Welland showed me a book, the _Micrographia_--so tiny there might be hundreds, nay thousands of them there on the space of my little fingernail. Too small to see without the lens, but living things, Ben--separate living beings, no fancy at all but the discovery of sober men--and he says, Mr. Welland says, why mayn't these animalculae have something to do with the mysteries of disease? They've been found everywhere--pond water, earth, the surface of the skin. Why mayn't they enter us sometimes, causing the ills we can't explain? It's a speculation, Mr. Welland says--he found it not in the books, only had the thought, and now and then (he said himself) from such thoughts come discoveries. I must--_know_, said Reuben. He jumped up and crossed the room swiftly to examine the books again.
gpt
One thing I know: you wasn't drunk when you bought these.
human
No, I didn't drink until supper at the tavern, and then later.
gpt
Later?
human
Well, Mr. Shawn took me to a--place. A house, Ru--one of those.
gpt
Oh?... Ben wondered why he had been moved to speak of it at all: there was no need. But even now, aware of something tight and painful in Reuben's silence, he felt and suppressed a continuing impulse to brag, to invent for Reuben a story of what never happened.
human
Was it--any good, Ben?
gpt
I can't say it was. I think I'd had too much ale, and then something more there--buttered rum. That was my undoing.
human
You mean nothing happened?
gpt
Nothing much.... No, damn it, nothing--I spilled at the gates. I think maybe I didn't really wish to go. Mr. Shawn----
human
Well, the devil fly off with your friend Shawn, and couldn't the son of a bitch stand by you and you so drunk? Do you know you was stepping direct for that quicksand?
gpt
I--was?
human
We might have gone down in it.
gpt
Well--wait, Ru! It was no fault of Shawn. I left him at the house. He was still with his wench when I was ready to go, and some-way I didn't wish to see him then, so I came off alone.
human
Oh. His face still averted, his thin hands motionless on the books, Reuben muttered:
gpt
Sorry, Ben. The cork popped out of the bottle and I spattered. My regrets. He started getting dressed, and Ben knew his chatter was mainly for his own benefit:
human
Beware the lightning after breakfast--Pontifex is not wholly pleased with our Benjamin, and will be summoning the cohorts of Ovid, his _Tristia_; Ramus, his _Logic_; Cicero, his honorificabilitudinitatibus.
gpt
Ow-ooh!
human
What--coach wheels?
gpt
I thought that was my head.
human
No, said Reuben, and flung open the window.
gpt
Something's afoot.
human
If on wheels, how should it be--ow! Shut that arctic window, you bloody worm!