Chapter 5

THE EPISODE OF THE NEEDLE THAT DID NOT MATCH

"Sebastian is a great man," I said to Hilda Wade, as I sat one afternoon
over a cup of tea she had brewed for me in her own little sitting-room.
It is one of the alleviations of an hospital doctor's lot that he may
drink tea now and again with the Sister of his ward. "Whatever else you
choose to think of him, you must admit he is a very great man."

I admired our famous Professor, and I admired Hilda Wade: 'twas a
matter of regret to me that my two admirations did not seem in return
sufficiently to admire one another. "Oh, yes," Hilda answered, pouring
out my second cup; "he is a very great man. I never denied that. The
greatest man, on the whole, I think, that I have ever come across."

"And he has done splendid work for humanity," I went on, growing
enthusiastic.

"Splendid work! Yes, splendid! (Two lumps, I believe?) He has done more,
I admit, for medical science than any other man I ever met."

I gazed at her with a curious glance. "Then why, dear lady, do you keep
telling me he is cruel?" I inquired, toasting my feet on the fender. "It
seems contradictory."

She passed me the muffins, and smiled her restrained smile.

"Does the desire to do good to humanity in itself imply a benevolent
disposition?" she answered, obliquely.

"Now you are talking in paradox. Surely, if a man works all his life
long for the good of mankind, that shows he is devoured by sympathy for
his species."

"And when your friend Mr. Bates works all his life long at observing,
and classifying lady-birds, I suppose that shows he is devoured by
sympathy for the race of beetles!"

I laughed at her comical face, she looked at me so quizzically. "But
then," I objected, "the cases are not parallel. Bates kills and collects
his lady-birds; Sebastian cures and benefits humanity."

Hilda smiled her wise smile once more, and fingered her apron. "Are the
cases so different as you suppose?" she went on, with her quick glance.
"Is it not partly accident? A man of science, you see, early in life,
takes up, half by chance, this, that, or the other particular form
of study. But what the study is in itself, I fancy, does not greatly
matter; do not mere circumstances as often as not determine it? Surely
it is the temperament, on the whole, that tells: the temperament that is
or is not scientific."

"How do you mean? You ARE so enigmatic!"

"Well, in a family of the scientific temperament, it seems to me, one
brother may happen to go in for butterflies--may he not?--and another
for geology,