DOCTOR IN CLOVER

'And this parrot used to belong to an old lady who bought it from a sailor-'

'Say, Waiter!'

'There isn't a waiter in sight,' interrupted Connie.

'Never is when you want one,' grumbled Miles.

'I think he's an American who keeps shouting,' said Connie.

'And the old lady always used to keep it under a green baize cloth in the front parlour. Every morning she'd take the cloth off the cage, and every morning the parrot said-'

'Hey, Waiter, for chrissakes!'

A fat man I'd just served with cigars and brandy appeared at my elbow. 'Excuse me, folks. I just wanted to tell the waiter here I've had a darned fine meal and darned fine service. I reckon it's the best I've struck since I've been in Europe. I was just getting on my way when I thought, shucks, I gotta give credit where credit is due. Thanks a lot, son. This is for you.'

The beastly chap stuffed a pound note into my top pocket.

'But how extraordinary,' exclaimed Miles.

'He thought you were the waiter!' laughed Connie.

'People never notice the fellows who serve them with food,' I mumbled. 'Conan Doyle or Edgar Wallace or someone wrote a story about it.'

'But he did seem pretty definite.' Miles gave me a nasty look.

'Oh, Miles, you know what Americans are,' said Connie. At that moment, Pedro appeared again. I pretended to be arranging the flower vase.

'Everything all ri'?'

'No,' said Miles. 'The waiter hasn't brought any grated parmesan with my canneloni.'_

Pedro glared across the table.

'Zere is no grated cheese with the canneloni.'_

I glanced round for the cheese thing. I might reach across for it with a little laugh.

'That's exactly what I said,' Miles returned. 'It happens that I'm particularly fond of grated cheese with my canneloni.'_

'So am I,' said Connie.

'There is no grated cheese with the canneloni!' shouted Pedro in my direction.

'Good gracious, man!' exclaimed Miles. 'Don't yell at me like that.'

'I am not yelling at you like that, monsieur. I am yelling at 'im like that. _There is no grated cheese on the canneloni!'_

Connie jumped up.

'How dare you address my guests in that manner! I am going to leave this restaurant this very instant.'

Pedro looked as if he'd been hit in the neck with one of his own canneloni. 'Guests, madame? What guests? You're fired,' he added to me.

'I shall never eat here again, and I shall tell all my friends not to eat here either. Come along, Miles. Treating our guest here as one of your waiters-'

'But, damn it, madame! 'E is one of my waiters. 'E come every night, part time-'

'Only five days a week,' I insisted.

'Gaston!' Connie gave a little gasp. 'Is this really true?'

I nodded. The Grimsdyke ingenuity had been beaten back to its own goal-line. I reached for my napkin and automatically flicked the tablecloth.

'I'm not a doctor, really,' I murmured.

'I'm a student. I take this on for a little extra dibs.'

There was a silence. Connie started to laugh. In fact, she laughed so long she almost asphyxiated herself with a stick of Italian bread. In the end we all four thought it a tremendous joke, even Pedro.

But Connie never looked at me the same way again. And a fortnight later got engaged to Miles. I was pretty cut up about it at the time, I suppose. I often wonder how life would have turned out if Miles had been more of a gentleman and taken her somewhere like the Ritz.

The only compensation was that, according to the American chap, if I had to be a waiter I was a damn good one.

7

'I'm afraid I was somewhat over-optimistic at the way things would go at St Swithin's,' announced Miles.

Connie had left us after providing a charming little dinner, and I was guessing my chances of getting a cigar.

'The appointment of Sharper's successor has as usual got mixed up with hospital politics.'

He stared gloomily into the fruit bowl.

'Sir Lancelot Spratt is making an infernal nuisance of himself on the committee. He is opposing my candidature, purely because Mr Cambridge is supporting it. Sir Lancelot has quarrelled with him, you know. Cambridge refuses to knock down his old clinical laboratory, and Sir Lancelot wants to park his car there. To think! My future decided by a car park.'

'There's nothing like a mahogany table and a square of pink blotting-paper to bring out the worst in a chap's character,' I sympathized. 'How about the other runners?'

'There are thirty other prospective candidates for the post, all as well qualified as I. But we are mere pawns, mere cyphers. Perhaps I should apologize for being short with you earlier, Gaston. The strain, you know. The uncertainty…'

He miserably cracked a nut.

I felt sorry for the chap. Personally, there was nothing I'd have liked less than being a consultant at St Swithin's, having to wear a stiff collar every day and never being able to date up the nurses, but it had been Miles' ambition ever since he was cutting up that dogfish. And I rather felt that Connie, too, fancied herself in a new hat running the hoop-la with other consultants' wives at the annual hospital fкte. Besides, Miles was the brightest young surgeon St Swithin's had seen for years, and I should have felt a bit of a cad not helping so worthy a practitioner along the professional path.

'If you didn't get on at St Swithin's,' I tried to console him, 'you'd find a consultant job easily enough in the provinces.'

'But it wouldn't be the same thing. And, of course, Connie and I would have to leave our home.'

I nodded. Since the waiter episode girls had been in and out of my life like people viewing an unsatisfactory flat, but I'd always retained a soft spot for Connie. The thought of her confined for life to a place like Porterhampton upset me so much I'd almost have had another go at living there myself to prevent it.

'In such delicate circumstances,' I suggested, 'I take it you'd more than ever like me tucked away in some respectable job?'

'Exactly.'

'Find me one, old lad, and I will. I can't possibly face Palethorpe for months, of course.'

'I have some influence with the Free Teetotal Hospital at Tooting. They'll be needing a new house-surgeon next week.'

'And the week after, I'm afraid, as far as I'm concerned.'

Miles stroked his pale moustache.

'A pity you didn't keep your position on the _Medical Observer. _At least it utilized your talent for the pen respectably.'

'That was a congenial job,' I agreed, 'until the old editor banished me to the obituaries.'

The _Medical Observer_ was the trade press, which lands on doctors' doormats every Friday morning and is widely appreciated in the profession for lighting the Saturday fires. It has an upstairs office near the British Museum in imminent danger of condemnation by the health, fire, and town planning authorities, where I'd been assistant to