The Doctor’s Dilemma

is still quite presentable.

Emmy	Entering and immediately beginning to dust the couch. There’s a lady bothering me to see the doctor.
Redpenny	Distracted by the interruption. Well, she can’t see the doctor. Look here: what’s the use of telling you that the doctor can’t take any new patients, when the moment a knock comes to the door, in you bounce to ask whether he can see somebody?
Emmy	Who asked you whether he could see somebody?
Redpenny	You did.
Emmy	I said there’s a lady bothering me to see the doctor. That isn’t asking. It’s telling.
Redpenny	Well, is the lady bothering you any reason for you to come bothering me when I’m busy?
Emmy	Have you seen the papers?
Redpenny	No.
Emmy	Not seen the birthday honors?
Redpenny	Beginning to swear. What the⁠—
Emmy	Now, now, ducky!
Redpenny	What do you suppose I care about the birthday honors? Get out of this with your chattering. Dr. Ridgeon will be down before I have these letters ready. Get out.
Emmy	Dr. Ridgeon won’t never be down any more, young man.
	She detects dust on the console and is down on it immediately.
Redpenny	Jumping up and following her. What?
Emmy	He’s been made a knight. Mind you don’t go Dr. Ridgeoning him in them letters. Sir Colenso Ridgeon is to be his name now.
Redpenny	I’m jolly glad.
Emmy	I never was so taken aback. I always thought his great discoveries was fudge (let alone the mess of them) with his drops of blood and tubes full of Maltese fever and the like. Now he’ll have a rare laugh at me.
Redpenny	Serve you right! It was like your cheek to talk to him about science. He returns to his table and resumes his writing.
Emmy	Oh, I don’t think much of science; and neither will you when you’ve lived as long with it as I have. What’s on my mind is answering the door. Old Sir Patrick Cullen has been here already and left first congratulations⁠—hadn’t time to come up on his way to the hospital, but was determined to be first⁠—coming back, he said. All the rest will be here too: the knocker will be going all day. What I’m afraid of is that the doctor’ll want a footman like all the rest, now that he’s Sir Colenso. Mind: don’t you go putting him up to it, ducky; for he’ll never have any comfort with anybody but me to answer the door. I know who to let in and who to keep out. And that reminds me of the poor lady. I think he ought to see her. She’s just the kind that puts him in a good temper. She dusts Redpenny’s papers.
Redpenny	I tell you he can’t see anybody. Do go away, Emmy. How can I work with you dusting all over me like this?
Emmy	I’m not hindering you working⁠—if you call writing letters working. There goes the bell. She looks out of the window. A doctor’s carriage. That’s more congratulations. She is going out when Sir Colenso Ridgeon enters. Have you finished your two eggs, sonny?
Ridgeon	Yes.
Emmy	Have you put on your clean vest?
Ridgeon	Yes.
Emmy	That’s my ducky diamond! Now keep yourself tidy and don’t go messing about and dirtying your hands: the people are coming to congratulate you. She goes out.
	Sir Colenso Ridgeon is a man of fifty who has never shaken off his youth. He has the offhanded manner and the little audacities of address which a shy and sensitive man acquires in breaking himself in to intercourse with all sorts and conditions of men. His face is a good deal lined; his movements are slower than, for instance, Redpenny’s; and his flaxen hair has lost its lustre; but in figure and manner he is more the young man than the titled physician. Even the lines in his face are those of overwork and restless scepticism, perhaps partly of curiosity and appetite, rather than of age. Just at present the announcement of his knighthood in the morning papers makes him specially self-conscious, and consequently specially offhand with Redpenny.
Ridgeon	Have you seen the papers? You’ll have to alter the name in the letters if you haven’t.
Redpenny	Emmy has just told me. I’m awfully glad. I⁠—
Ridgeon	Enough, young man, enough. You will soon get accustomed to it.
Redpenny	They ought to have done it years ago.
Ridgeon	They would have; only they couldn’t stand Emmy opening the door, I daresay.
Emmy	At the door, announcing. Dr. Shoemaker. She withdraws.
	A middle-aged gentleman, well dressed, comes in with a friendly but propitiatory air, not quite sure of his reception. His combination of soft manners and responsive kindliness, with a certain unseizable reserve and a familiar yet foreign chiselling of feature, reveal the Jew: in this instance the handsome gentlemanly Jew, gone a little pigeon-breasted and stale after thirty, as handsome young Jews often do, but still decidedly good-looking.
The Gentleman	Do you remember me? Schutzmacher. University College school and Belsize Avenue. Loony Schutzmacher, you know.
Ridgeon	What! Loony! He shakes hands cordially. Why, man, I thought you were dead long ago. Sit down. Schutzmacher sits on the couch: Ridgeon on the chair between it and the window. Where have you been these thirty years?
Schutzmacher	In general practice, until a few months ago. I’ve retired.
Ridgeon	Well done, Loony! I wish I could afford to retire. Was your practice in London?
Schutzmacher	No.
Ridgeon	Fashionable coast practice, I suppose.
Schutzmacher	How could I afford to buy a fashionable practice? I hadn’t a rap. I set up in a manufacturing town in the midlands in a little surgery at ten shillings a week.
Ridgeon	And made your fortune?
Schutzmacher	Well, I’m pretty comfortable. I have a place in Hertfordshire besides our flat in town. If you ever want a quiet Saturday to Monday, I’ll take you down in my motor at an hours notice.
Ridgeon	Just rolling in money! I wish you rich G.P.’s would teach me how to make some. What’s the secret of it?