DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE

'Your father is a Swithin's man, I believe?'

'Oh yes, sir.'

'I am not the Dean,' he explained. 'I am the medical school Secretary. I was Secretary here long before you were born, my boy. Before your father, probably. I remember well enough when the Dean himself came up to be admitted.' He removed his glasses and pointed them at me. 'I've seen thousands of students pass through the school. Some of 'em have turned out good, and some of 'em bad-it's just like your own children.'

I nodded heartily, as I was anxious to please everyone.

'Now, young feller,' he went on more briskly, 'I've got some questions to ask you.'

I folded my hands submissively and braced myself mentally.

'Have you been to a public school?' he asked.

'Yes.'

'Do you play rugby football or association?'

'Rugby.'

'Do you think you can afford to pay the fees?'

'Yes.'

He grunted, and without a word withdrew. Left alone, I diverted my apprehensive mind by running my eye carefully over the line of black-and-white deans studying each one in turn. After ten minutes or so the old man returned and led me in to see the living holder of the office.

Dr. Loftus was a short, fat, genial man with wispy white hair like pulled-out cotton wool. He was sitting at an old-fashioned roll-topped desk that was stacked untidily with folders, copies of medical journals, letters, and reference books. On top of these he had thrown a Homburg hat, a pair of yellow gloves, and his stethoscope. He was obviously in a hurry.

'Sorry to keep you waiting, old man,' he said cheerily, 'I was held up at a post-mortem. Have a seat.'

I sat down on a hard leather chair beside the desk.

'Now,' the Dean began. 'Have you been to a public school?'

'Yes.'

'Your people can afford the fees and that sort of thing?'

'I believe so.'

'You play rugby, I suppose?'

'Yes, sir.'

The Dean began to look interested.

'What position?' he asked.

'Wing three-quarter.'

He drew a pad of paper towards him and pencilled fifteen dots on it in rugby formation.

'Threequarter…' he murmured to himself. 'How old are you?' he asked sharply.

'Almost eighteen, sir.'

'Umm. First fifteen at school?'

'Oh yes, sir.'

The Dean traced lines through his dots, crossed other out, and rustled through a sheaf of typewritten papers beside him. He jerked back in his chair and inspected me closely all over.

'You're rather thin, aren't you,' he announced. 'I suppose you've got the speed?'

'I've got cups for the hundred,' I told him eagerly.

'Well, you may shape well. Lucky you're a three. The hospital's full of forwards,' he added in disgust.

He frowned at his paper pad for a few seconds. His face suddenly lightened, and I saw he had come to a decision: my hands gripped the arms of the chair as I waited to receive it. Rising, he shook me briskly by the hand and told me he had pleasure in admitting me to St. Swithin's.

I wondered for some time afterwards how he had been able to discover from these questions that I had the attributes of a successful doctor, but I later found out that even this brief interview was superfluous, as the Dean always took the advice of his old secretary and told applicants this man disliked the look of that there were no vacancies.

2

The medical school of St. Swithin's hospital was an offshoot of the main buildings and had its own entrance on the main road. It was a tall, gloomy structure that held three floors of laboratories, an anatomical dissection room, a lecture theatre that was clothed in perpetual dusk, and the smelliest lavatories in the district.

The school had been built by the richest brewer in London, who was happily knocked over by a hansom outside the hospital gates one slippery winter's morning in 1875. He was restored to health and normal locomotion in the wards, and to show his gratitude he purchased his peerage the following year by founding the school. The place was now far too old, dark, and small for the requirements of the students, but as the hospital could see little prospect of the accident being repeated it was impossible to tear it down.

At the beginning of October thirty new students collected there for a lecture of welcome and introduction by the Dean. Carrying a new and shiny loose-leaf folder under my arm, I walked up the stone steps for the first time and into the dingy, small entrance hall. The brewer's name was carved in stone over the doorway to indicate the hospital's enduring gratitude, and was reflected in green and gold across the face of the King George public house opposite. Below his chiselled title were the serpents entwined round the winged staff, the doctors' universal trademark, and below that Hippocrates' discouraging aphorism 'The Art is Long.'