DOCTOR AT LARGE

'Of course. The usual treatment.' I stood up and rubbed my hands slowly together. 'And how,' I asked craftily, 'is the usual complaint?'

'About the same.'

'I see.'

I nodded sagely. There was a pause.

'Let's get on with it, Doctor,' the Duke continued, settling himself on the bed, a brave man about to face an ordeal. 'The sooner it's started, the sooner it's finished.'

What the devil could it be? Manipulation of the vertebrae? Syphonage of the sinuses? Something internal with irrigation? Hypnosis?

'Come along, Doctor.' The Duke was becoming impatient. 'Potter-Phipps does it in a jiffy, with his bare hands.'

I blurted out, now desperate, 'Perhaps you will forgive me for asking, sir-'

'Oh, the new ones? They're in the box on the chimneypiece.'

I shot a glance hopefully towards the fireplace, but met only an unhelpful ormolu clock and some statuettes.

'Of course, sir, new ones-'

'They need new ones this time, and no mistake,' the Duke went on, waggling his feet. Suddenly I saw-I had been summoned to change his corn-plasters.

At the end of the operation the Duke said, 'I suppose you'll be expecting the same sort of outrageous fee as old Potter-Phipps?'

'I really couldn't say,' I told him, smiling with relief. 'I never discuss the money side of it.'

'Neither do I,' he agreed. 'In my family it's thought rather vulgar.'

10

Dr Potter-Phipps ran his practice as efficiently as a motor-car factory. Every morning at eight, three men in green overalls arrived with vacuum cleaners; at eight-fifteen a man dressed as a postilion called with the day's supply of clean towels; at eight-twenty a page-boy brought the waiting-room papers and magazines; at eight-thirty a girl looking like Lady Macbeth with pernicious anaemia came from a West End florist's to change the flowers; at eight-forty a fat man in a frockcoat and bowler entered with Dr Potter-Phipps' freshly-pressed suits; at eight-fifty the chauffeurs, the butler, the secretary, and the nurse appeared, and at nine sharp we were open for business.

The nurse was needed only to show patients from the waiting-room to the consulting-room, and was dressed in a white uniform so crisp and sparkling that she always appeared to have been just unwrapped from cellophane. She was also one of the prettiest girls I had ever met, which had spurred me to start a cosy conversation of hospital reminiscences during my first morning's work.

'I haven't actually been a nurse in hospital, darling,' she told me. 'Of course, I looked after my poor sister when she was poorly, but I'm not what you'd calf an invalid's nurse. Razzy's such a sweet, he gave me the job because he said I looked the part. I played a nurse once, in _Men in White._ Did you see it?'

I said no.

'After all, darling, it's not as if anyone we saw here was ill. We just don't have those sort of patients, do we, darling?'

She was right: most of our practice consisted of old gentlemen wondering if they could take out more life insurance, young gentlemen wondering if they'd caught unfortunate diseases, and young women wondering if they were pregnant. Anyone seriously ill was immediately sent north of Oxford Street to the consultants who kept in most successfully with Razzy. It was St Swithin's casualty-room again, first class; but even Dr Hockett's practice would have been bearable with three Rolls-Royces.

Everyone seemed to like Razzy, and I soon became as fond of him as the rest of his employees. He was a shrewd clinician who had the supreme medical gift of always knowing whether a patient was really ill or not; he was an equally shrewd business man, whose polite patter about money always made people give him more and accept less. The only faintly shady part of the practice was our electrocardiograph, an instrument for taking electrical records of the heart, which represented the conflict between Razzy the doctor and Razzy the financier: he knew that as a diagnostic aid it was almost useless, but he hated not seeing a return on his capital. It was an old model, as untidy as an experimental television set, but every time he set out on a professional visit the electrocardiograph followed in its Rolls. The only occasion I saw Razzy looking worried after the case of the Duke's corn plasters was the morning he returned from an urgent call to a newspaper owner, who had suffered a stroke in the bathroom.

'A near thing, dear boy,' he told me, as he came through the door shaking his head. 'A damn near thing,'

'What, did you pull him through?'

'Oh, no, the old boy's dead. But I only got the electrocardiograph there in the nick of time.'

Our most constant, and most profitable, patients in the practice were several dozen neurotic women, all of whom were in love with Razzy. He had long, soothing telephone conversations with them frequently during the day, and they often appeared dramatically at the front door in the evening, dressed up like an advertisement for Cartier's.

'Yes, of course, they're in love with me, dear boy,' he stated one day. 'Speaking quite objectively, it's the only thing that keeps most of them from suicide. What else would you expect me to do?'

'But surely, Razzy,' I protested, 'don't you sometimes find it rather awkward?'

'Not in the least, dear boy. I don't have to be in love with them.'_

My spell in Razzy's practice was delightful; I soon forgot Dr Hockett, Jasmine, and the Wilkins family, and even managed to shift Wilson, Willowick, and Wellbeloved from the front of my mind. Although I was never allowed to treat the aristocracy again, he let me try my hand at a few actors and an M.P. or two, until I had worked my way so deeply into the practice that a reminder of my impermanence came as a shock.

'I'm seeing my partner tomorrow,' Razzy said one Saturday morning, when I had been with him over two months. 'He's coming along famously. Absolutely famously. We'll have him back in another few weeks.'

'I'm glad,' I lied.

'And I expect you're simply itching to get back to the Himalayas again, aren't you, dear boy?'

'Well, not itching exactly-'

'I'm so pleased you came to help us out. You've done terribly well, you know. All my old dears think the world of you. The wife of that Coal Board fellow told me yesterday you were a pet.'

'I'll certainly be sorry to leave. I've even thought of having a go at a practice somewhere round here myself.'

For a second Razzy's eyes narrowed. 'I wouldn't advise it, dear boy. I really wouldn't. It's quite a dog's life really. The struggle to get started-terrible! And the competition. Most frightful. You'd be far better off in the Himalayas.'

There were no patients waiting, so we stood for a while looking silently out of the window. It was a brilliant spring day, the buds on the trees in Hyde Park were straining like hatching chicks, the passers-by were stepping along jauntily without their overcoats, and even the Park Lane traffic smelt warmly exciting.

'Spring, dear boy' said Razzy with a contented sigh, as if hearing that a millionaire had fallen a couple of floors down our lift-shaft. He stayed watching the people hurrying away for their week-ends. 'Do you know, dear boy, I haven't had an afternoon off since I met that fellow Grimsdyke at the races? That's the sort of practice we're in. Always on tap. It's what they pay for I suppose.' After a pause he added, 'I know it's your free afternoon, but I wondered if you'd care to do a little fort-holding?'

'More than delighted, Razzy. Honestly.'

'Bless you, dear boy. Then I'm off to Sunningdale. I'll dine out and turn up about midnight in case there are any messages. Everyone will be out of town on a week-end like this, anyway.'

After lunch he changed into flannels, rang up a well-known film actress and persuaded her to keep him