ANTI-ROOM AT THE VETERINARY DINNER. 99 
that you will not refuse to plead his cause in those of lesser im¬ 
port, and yet I do wrong when I call them so. 
There are no men whom I value more than yourselves. Sup¬ 
pose that, as an expression of my respect and gratitude, I ven¬ 
tured to ask you to my humble board; and that, lest I should 
presume too much, I gave you to understand that I would not 
dare to force myself or any of my humble friends upon you in the 
drawing-room (if I had one), but that the best apartment in the 
house should be set apart for your reception, and that of a few of 
the great ones among us; and that, afterwards when the dinner 
was announced, you should statelily stalk through a double row of 
my poor insignificant acquaintance, deigning, perhaps, to bestow 
a nod upon one, and possibly a shake of the hand upon another, 
and should proceed to occupy the upper part of my table (there, 
indeed, I should wish to place you), eating, drinking, and mak¬ 
ing merry among yourselves, but taking no manner of notice of 
us small fry: supposing, I say, that you were to accept of my 
invitation on these terms; supposing it was the understood rou¬ 
tine, the very terms on which we were to meet; supposing that 
you could be vain, proud, ridiculous, unfeeling enough to do this 
(I well know you would not), what would be the result ? I should 
hate myself for being so despicable as to submit to such gross 
and unprovoked insult; I should forget all my former respect for 
you, and hate you for your arrogance ; and my brethren and the 
world would despise me for such disgraceful submission. 
Now, gentlemen, what I ask of you is to permit me, through 
the medium of your Journal, to point out the bearing, the hateful 
bearing of this little fiction on me and my profession; and the 
gratuitous, unexampled insult which is annually heaped upon us 
by those who I am sure do not mean to insult us, and who, I 
think, will be a little angry with themselves when they reflect 
how grossly they have done so. 
At the dinners at Guy’s and Bartholomew’s, where the pupils 
have as kindly a feeling towards their superiors as I have to¬ 
wards mine, but not more than I have, I know that the great and 
the small mingle together in the anti-room; and the most plea¬ 
sant part of the day is when the pupil has an opportunity to say 
some respectful thing to his instructor and benefactor, and the 
instructor some kind and friendly thing to the pupil. These are 
the chosen moments of the feast, longest recollected, and the 
recollection fondly cherished. 
When the sovereign of the realm condescends to invite some 
of his subjects to his hospitable board, there is no previous, in¬ 
vidious, and hateful division of those who are afterwards to sur¬ 
round the table. I have been told that, at a late dinner given by 
