How well I remember the day I made his acquaintance! I had entered the laboratory without knowing what manner of man he was, for all my arrangements about my course had been made with clerks. So it was with genuine surprise that I turned from an inspection of the apparatus to answer when a squeaking voice at my elbow suddenly saluted me:-"Mees Veenship, not so?"
The owner of the voice was a little old fellow, whose dry, weazened face gave no hint of his years. I guessed that he was probably seventy, though he might as easily be much younger. His skin was parchment-coloured and cross-hatched by a thousand wrinkles and the hair under his skull-cap was as white as snow, but he was as bright of eye and brisk of manner as a youth of twenty.
"Yes, sir," I replied rather awkwardly; "I am Miss Winship."
"V'at for you study biology?" was his surprising query, uttered in a tone between a squeak, a snarl, and a grunt.
"Because I wish to learn," I replied, after a moment's hesitation.
"No, mine vriendt," he snapped, "you do not vish to learn. You care not'ing for science. You are romantic, you grope, you change, you are unformed. In a vord, you are a voman. You haf industry--mine Gott, yes!-- and you vill learn of me because I am a man and because you haf not'ing better to do. And by-and-by behold Prince Charming--and you vill meet and marry and forget science. V'at for I vaste my time vit' you? Eh? I do not know any voman who becomes a great scientist. Not so? T'ose young vomen, t'ey vaste t'eir time and t'ey vaste mine."
I followed his gesture and saw two or three nice-looking girls in big checked aprons amiably grinning at me. One of them by a solemn wink conveyed the hint that such hazing of new arrivals was not unusual.
"You're paid to waste your time on me," I answered hotly. "I'm here to work and to listen to you; my plans are my own affair, and if I never become a great scientist, I don't see what difference that makes to you."
The meekest looking girl gasped, wide eyed at my temerity. But Prof. Darmstetter's shrewd little eyes twinkled with reassuring good-nature.
"Vell, vell, ve shall see," said he, wagging his head; "maybe I find some use for you. I vatch you. Maybe I find for you some use t'at you don't expect, eh? Ve shall see."
So he walked away, shrugging his shoulders and snapping his fingers and muttering to himself: "Ve shall see; we shall see." And at times throughout the session he chuckled as if he had heard of an excellent joke.