'You must quite definitely see a psychiatrist. And meanwhile, how precisely are you going to earn your bread?'
'Ah, yes. I agree, that's the problem.'
Further discussion about my professional future was prevented by the appearance of Miles' wife.
'How charming you're back so soon, Gaston,' she greeted me. 'We quite thought you'd gone to seek your fortune up North.'
'I decided that opportunity taps less faintly in London, Connie.'
'I'm so glad. Now we'll see much more of you. What did you say, Miles, dear?'
'Nothing, nothing,' muttered Miles.
I knew Connie pretty well. In fact, once I was in love with her.
This happened when I was a student and Miles had just qualified as Mr Sharper's junior casualty house- surgeon, and pretty pleased with himself he felt about it, too. As I reflected during dinner that evening, Miles and I had never really hit it off at St Swithin's, or even as kids. Miles was the one who didn't get his boots dirty, always had his sums right, wasn't sick at all the parties, and didn't make a fuss about his tonsilectomy. At school he used to make me blow up his football and toast his crumpets. Then I followed him to St Swithin's, and like everyone else started medicine by dissecting the dogfish, which has put me off fish suppers ever since. Miles was already well into the course, and by the time I got as far as the anatomy rooms kept buttonholing me in the corridors with fatherly advice.
'If you spent a little more time dissecting and a little less writing all those stupid jokes for the students' magazine; was his usual line, 'you might show you were taking your career seriously.'
'I thought the last one was rather funny. About the girl who said she suffered from claustrophobia because she had a terrible fear of confinement.'
'Take it from me, Gaston, you'll regret this frivolity one day. You stick to your anatomy. It's the grammar of medicine.'
'Personally,' I disagreed, 'I think they only fill medical students with anatomy like they used to fill kids with brimstone and treacle. The experience is obviously so unpleasant, everybody agrees it must be doing them good.'
'I'm not at all certain it isn't my duty to write to my father,' he generally ended.
My own father having unfortunately perished in the RAMC, I was brought up under a Victorian system of guardians, with Dr Rudolph Grimsdyke as chief paymaster. Uncle Rudolph practising at the time out East, Miles was his nark on the spot, and I suppose he sneaked in the end because halfway through the course the old boy cut my allowance by half. I know that ever since _La Bohкme_ it's been thought rather romantic for students to starve in garrets holding the tiny frozen hands of their girlfriends, but that sort of existence didn't appeal to me at all. Particularly as all the girls I knew seemed to complain shockingly of the draughts even in comfortable cocktail bars.
Shortly after the onset of this financial anaemia Miles qualified, glittering with scholarships and prizes.
'Gaston,' he said, getting me into a corner of the St Swithin's Casualty Department one winter afternoon, 'I want a serious word with you.'
'Oh, yes?'
'I'd be much obliged if you'd try to embarrass me a little less now that I'm on the St Swithin's junior staff. You must realize that I, at least, don't wish the entire family to be made ridiculous throughout the hospital. It's bad enough your always disappearing to the dog-races, but this habit of taking menial employment-'
'My dear old lad, I assure you I don't do it for fun. Anyway, it's all your old man's fault, being so tight-fisted. Surely you know by now I dislike work in any form whatever?'
I was at the time restoring my enfeebled exchequer with such casual jobs as dishwashing in West End restaurants and bar-keeping in East End pubs, and had just finished a profitable though strictly limited run as Father Christmas in an Oxford Street store.
'That's not the point at all. Mr Sharper was certain he saw you the other day. He was extremely blunt to me about it this morning.'
'Oh, really? I thought his keen surgical eye had pierced the whiskers. But I bet he only made a fuss because I told his beastly kids to ask for a complete set of electric trains and a couple of motor-cars.'
'I do wish you'd take this seriously, Gaston!'
'Let's talk about it another time. I must be off now, I'm afraid. Otherwise I'll be late for work.'
A few days after this argument I met Connie, by accident. All medical students dream of witnessing some really satisfactory road smash, then appearing on the scene to calm the panic-stricken bystanders with the magic words, 'I am a doctor.' I've done it myself three times. The first, the policeman told me to run home to mother. The second, I grabbed a tourniquet from some fumbling old boy and discovered he was the Professor of Surgery at St Asaph's. Now, of course, I walk rapidly in the opposite direction and leave it to the ambulance boys, remembering Sir Lancelot Spratt's resuscitation lecture-'When I chuck myself into the Thames in despair, ladies and gentlemen, I hope I'll be given artificial respiration by a fit Boy Scout, and not some middle-aged medical practitioner who's soon more out of breath than I am.' But when one is young, one doesn't consider such things. On this third occasion, as soon as I heard the scream of brakes and tinkling of glass, I leapt into the middle of Sloane Square and took sole charge.
In the next part of the dream, the injured party isn't a poor young child or a dear old lady, but a beautiful girl having hysterics. And that's exactly what I found. So I popped her in a taxi and drove her round to the casualty entrance at St Swithin's, where Miles organized X-rays, diagnosed a Colles' fracture, and signed an admission form for his ward.
'Charming girl, too,' I observed, as Connie was wheeled away.
'Thank you, Gaston, for holding the Xrays.'
'Always glad to help. I might pop up and see her later. Terribly important to follow-up cases, so they keep telling us.'
'Mr Sharper allows only his own students in his wards, I'm afraid.'
'Oh, come. Can't you stretch a point?'
'A point, being defined as possessing position but not magnitude, is incapable of being stretched,' said Miles.
All the same, I went up the next morning with a bunch of roses.
'How terribly sweet!' exclaimed Connie, looking beautiful despite the plaster and bandages. 'And your assistant's just called too, with the mimosa.'
'Assistant?'
'The doctor who helped you with the Xrays.'
'Ah, yes. Useful chap.'
The staff in modern hospitals outnumbering the patients by about five to one, the inmates can be excused for confusing the ranks. I remembered there was once a frightful row when Sir Lancelot Spratt in a white coat was mistaken for the ward barber.
'You'll be out of here this afternoon,' I went on, not bothering to start long explanations. 'When time has healed all your wounds, would you care to come out for a bite of dinner?'
'But I'd love to, Doctor!'
'Jolly good. I'll get your telephone number from the ward notes.'
Unfortunately, Connie turned out to be the daughter of a shockingly rich fellow from Lloyd's, so I couldn't buy her a pint of beer and show her the ducks in St James's Park and pretend I'd given her an exciting evening. Also, I knew a determined chap like Miles wouldn't easily give up. While I was sitting with her a few weeks later in the Savoy, hoping she wouldn't feel like another drink, I remarked casually, 'Seeing much of my cousin these days?'
'As a matter of fact, yes. I'm going to the theatre with him tomorrow.'
'It may be rather cheek of me to ask this, Connie, but I'd rather you didn't mention me to him, if you wouldn't mind.'
She looked surprised. 'Why ever not?'
'Just to save the poor chap's feelings. These little family jealousies, you know. He feels it rather, being my underling at the hospital.'
