the editor, a thin bird with a wing collar and severe views on the split infinitive.
'You can't imagine how depressing it was, writing up dead doctors from nine to five,' I told Miles. 'Though I composed my own for the files while I was there, and a jolly good one it will be, too. Yours isn't bad, either.'
'I am gratified to hear it. Perhaps you should go abroad? An oil company for which I do insurance examinations are prospecting up the River Amazon in Brazil. They have a vacancy for a medical officer on a five-year contract. The salary would certainly appeal to you. And you just said you could do with some sunshine.'
'But not five years of it, all at once.'
Miles began to look irritable again. 'I must say, Gaston, for a man in your position you're being extremely difficult to please.'
'Oh, I don't know. If I'm going to sell my soul I might as well get a decent price for it.'
'I do wish you'd discuss the subject of your livelihood seriously.'
'I was just about to, old lad. I don't suppose you could advance me ten quid, could you? Resigning abruptly from Porterhampton left me a month's salary short.'
'You know I am against loans among relatives. But I will agree if you accede to my suggestion about the psychiatrist. I am certain that's what you need. I can easily arrange for you to see Dr Punce, who manages the aptitude tests for the oil company. He rather specializes in whittling down square pegs.'
I don't share the modern reverence for psychiatrists, mostly because all the ones I know are as cracked as a load of old flowerpots. But the financial blood was running so thinly I accepted.
'I suppose you have no serious plans at all for maintaining yourself?' Miles asked, putting away his cheque book.
'I've a few more medical articles on the stocks. I'd also thought of trying my hand at a bit of copywriting-you know, 'Don't let your girdle be a hurdle, we make a snazzier brassiиre,' and so on.'
Miles winced.
'Gaston looking for another job?' asked Connie, appearing with the coffee. 'That's no problem anyway. A bright young man like him should be in demand anywhere.'
A bit _infra dig,_ I thought, a doctor going to a psychiatrist. Like a fireman ringing the station to say his house was alight. I didn't remember much of the psychiatry course at St Swithin's myself, except the afternoon Tony Benskin was left to hypnotize a young woman with headaches, and once he'd got her in the responsible state suggested she took her blouse off. Apparently Tony's hypnotic powers are low voltage, because the girl clocked him one against the corner of the instrument cupboard. Quite some confusion it caused when the chief psychiatrist came in, to find the patient stamping about shouting and the doctor unconscious.
But I dutifully appeared at Dr Punce's rooms in Wimpole Street the following afternoon, and found him a tall, thin fellow in striped trousers, a pince-nez on a black ribbon, and side-whiskers. I was shown in by a blonde nurse, which put me in a awkward position at the start-if I gave her the usual once-over the psychiatrist might decide something pretty sinister, and on the other hand, if I didn't, he might decide something even worse. I hit on a compromise, and asked her what the time was.
I took a seat and prepared for him to dig into my subconscious, shaking the psychopathic worms out of every spadeful.
'I don't suppose you treat many doctors?' I began.
'I assure you that all professions are fully represented in my casebooks.'
'Psychiatry is the spice of life, and all that?' I laughed.
But he had no sense of humour, either.
'The note I have from your cousin mentions your difficulty in finding congenial employment,' he went on, offering me a cigarette, as psychiatrists always do.
I nodded. 'Miles seems to think I should find a job with security. Though frankly I rather prefer insecurity. But I suppose that's a bit of a luxury these welfare days.'
'H'm. I am now going to recite a succession of words. I wish you to say the first word that comes into your head in reply. Light?'
'No, it's going very well, thank you. I've got some matches of my own.'
'That is the first word.'
'Oh, I see. Sorry. Yes, of course. Er-sun.'
'Night?'
'Club.'
'H'm. Sex?'
'Psychiatrists.'
'Line?'
'Sinker.'
'Straight?'
'Finishing.'
'Crooked?'
'Psychiatrists. I say, I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to say that at all.'
Dr Punce sat for a while with his eyes closed. I was wondering if he'd had a large lunch and dozed off, when he went on, 'Dr Grimsdyke, I have had a particularly heavy month with my practice. I fear that I am sometimes tempted to be rude to my more difficult patients.'
'If it's any consolation,' I sympathized with him, 'I'm tempted quite often too. But don't worry-the feeling will pass. I recommend a few days in the open air.'
'Have you heard the story of the donkey and the salt?' he asked bleakly.
'No, I don't think I have.' I settled down to listen, knowing that psychiatrists pick up quite a few good ones in the run of their work.
'I'd like you to follow it carefully. There was once a donkey who fell into the water, crossing a stream on a very hot day with a load of salt. Eventually he got to his feet, feeling greatly relieved because the water had dissolved his burden. The next day he was crossing the stream loaded with sponges. This time he deliberately fell, but the sponges soaked up so much water the donkey was unable to rise at all. The animal succumbed. What do you think of that?'
'Ha ha!' I said. 'Jolly funny.'
In fact, I thought it a pretty stupid story, but one has to be polite.
'You think that the story is funny?'
'Oh, yes. Best I've heard for weeks. I suppose you know the one about the bishop and the parrot?'
'Dear me, dear me,' said the psychiatrist, and started writing notes.
After a good many questions about the Grimsdyke childhood, which was just the same as any other beastly little boy's, he asked, 'Any sexual difficulties?'
'By Jove, yes.'
I told him the story of Avril Atkinson, but he didn't seem impressed.
'Your trouble, Dr Grimsdyke,' he finally decided, wiping his pince-nez, 'is that you find yourself in uncongenial employment.'
I asked him what I was supposed to do about it, but he only said something about it being a consulting-room and not the Labour Exchange.
'I mean, being a doctor doesn't train you for anything else much, does it? Not like some of those barristers, who get fed up standing on their feet drivelling away to judges and collect fat salaries running insurance companies.'
'There have been medical bishops and ambassadors. Rhodesia had a medical Prime Minister. Goethe and Schiller were, of course, once both medical students.'
'Yes, and Dr Gatling invented the machine gun, Dr Guillotin invented the guillotine and Dr Dover became a pirate. I don't think I've much qualification for any of those professions, I'm afraid.'
'I suggest some non-clinical branch. How about entymology? Are you fond of insects?'
I thought deeply. 'Well, if I'm really no good as a doctor I suppose I could always end up as a psychiatrist. I say, I'm terribly sorry,' I added. 'Just for the moment I was forgetting-'
'Good afternoon, Dr Grimsdyke.'
'Right-ho. Do you want to see me again?'
