Just now I've got no work to do, and so have entered my name on Turcival's list of eligibles." Thorndyke pursed up his lips and frowned.
"It's a wicked shame, Jervis," said he presently, "that a man of your abilities and scientific acquirements should be frittering away his time on odd jobs like some half-qualified wastrel." "It is," I agreed.

"My merits are grossly undervalued by a stiff-necked and obtuse generation.

But what would you have, my learned brother?
If poverty steps behind you and claps the occulting bushel over your thirty thousand candle-power luminary, your brilliancy is apt to be obscured." "Yes, I suppose that is so," grunted Thorndyke, and he remained for a time in deep thought.
"And now," said I, "let us have your promised explanation.

I am positively frizzling with curiosity to know what chain of circumstances has converted John Evelyn Thorndyke from a medical practitioner into a luminary of the law." Thorndyke smiled indulgently.
"The fact is," said he, "that no such transformation has occurred.

John Evelyn Thorndyke is still a medical practitioner." "What, in a wig and gown!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, a mere sheep in wolf's clothing," he replied.