“Clubnose”

A Study from Life

(From Chambers’s Journal) 

It was in a hospital at the east end of London that I first made the acquaintance of “Clubnose.” An old college friend of mine, who was one of the resident surgeons, was showing me over the wards, and there passed us two or three times a hospital nurse, whose remarkable appearance arrested my attention. She had I think, the most hideous and repulsive face I ever saw on man or woman. It was not that the features were naturally ugly, for it was simply impossible to tell in what semblance nature had originally molded them; but they had been so completely battered out of shape, that one would have fancied she must have been subjected to much the same treatment as the figure-head on which Daniel Quilp used to vent his impotent fury. The hero of a score of unsuccessful prize-fights could not have shown worse facial disfigurement than this tidily dressed, cleanly looking woman.

When we had finished our tour of the wards, I turned to my friend, and pointing to the receding figure of the nurse, who had just passed us again, I said: “What a dreadful ill-looking nurse you have there! Why, it must be enough to send a patient into fits to have that face bending over him.”

“O!” said he, laughing, “that’s ‘Clubnose.’” Then lowering his voice, he added: “She’s not a nurse really—she’s a detective.”… Read More