"I will tell you how it has come about.

After you left the hospital, six years ago, I stayed on, taking up any small appointments that were going--assistant demonstrator--or curatorships and such like--hung about the chemical and physical laboratories, the museum and post mortem room, and meanwhile took my M.D.and D.Sc.

Then I got called to the bar in the hope of getting a coronership, but soon after this, old Stedman retired unexpectedly--you remember Stedman, the lecturer on medical jurisprudence--and I put in for the vacant post.

Rather to my surprise, I was appointed lecturer, whereupon I dismissed the coronership from my mind, took my present chambers and sat down to wait for anything that might come." "And what has come ?" I asked.
"Why, a very curious assortment of miscellaneous practice," he replied.
"At first I only got an occasional analysis in a doubtful poisoning case, but, by degrees, my sphere of influence has extended until it now includes all cases in which a special knowledge of medicine or physical science can be brought to bear upon law." "But you plead in court, I observe," said I.
"Very seldom," he replied.

"More usually I appear in the character of that _bete noir_ of judges and counsel--the scientific witness.