of them that when the other students used to go out into the court of
the hospital after lectures were over, they would invariably catch sight
of young Huxley's dark head at a certain window bent over a microscope
while they amused themselves outside. The constant silhouette framed in
the outlines of the window tickled the fancy of the young fellows, and a
wag amongst them dubbed it with a name that stuck, "The Sign of the Head
and Microscope."

The scientific paper, too, which he mentions, was somewhat remarkable
under the circumstances. It is not given to every medical student to
make an anatomical discovery, even a small one. In this case the boy of
nineteen, investigating things for himself, found a hitherto
undiscovered membrane in the root of the human hair, which received the
name of Huxley's layer.

Speculations, too, such as had filled his mind in early boyhood, still
haunted his thoughts. In one of his letters from the "Rattlesnake," he
gives an account of how he was possessed in his student days by that
problem which has beset so many a strong imagination, the problem of
perpetual motion, and even sought an interview with Faraday, whom he
left with the resolution to meet the great man some day on a more equal
footing.]

March 1848.

To-day, ruminating over the manifold ins and outs of life in general,
and my own in particular, it came into my head suddenly that I would
write down my interview with Faraday--how many years ago? Aye, there's
the rub, for I have completely forgotten. However, it must have been in
either my first or second winter session at Charing Cross, and it was