DOCTOR IN CLOVER

'A hospital story, eh? They're generally sellers, at any rate,' said Mr Carboy.

He was a fat chap in a tweed suit, whom I'd found sitting among photographs of his best-selling authors and prize-winning cattle reading the _Farmer and Stockbreeder._ But he was very civil, and gave me a cup of tea.

'The drama of the operating theatre,' murmured Plover, a thin, pale fellow on whom nothing seemed to grow very well-hair, moustache, bow-tie, all drooped like a sensitive plant after a thunderstorm.

'I'll have a go, then,' I said. I felt the interview was more encouraging than the one you got on entering St Swithin's, when they just told you the number of chaps they chucked out for slacking.

'Have a go by all means, Doctor,' agreed Carboy. 'Just send us the manuscript when it's finished. Can't promise anything definite, of course. But we'll certainly read it.'

'Er-one small point-'

I didn't want to raise sordid questions among such literary gents, but I went on, 'I met an author chap once, who said publishers often made a small advance-'

'We should be delighted, Doctor,' said Carboy. 'Absolutely delighted,' agreed Plover. 'Nothing gives a publisher greater pleasure than encouraging the young artist. Eh, Plover? But alas! The state of the book trade.'

'Simply terrible just now,' affirmed Plover, drooping further.

'Quite indescribable.'

'Bankruptcies weekly.'

'Poor Hargreaves. Shot himself only yesterday.'

'I'm not at all certain,' ended Plover, 'that I didn't hear the crack of a pistol shot on my way to lunch.'

I left, wondering whether I should offer to pay for the tea.

In the absence of patronage from Carboy and Plover, I put one cigarette case up the spout, bought a second-hand typewriter and Roget's Thesaurus, and settled down to work.

Being a medical student is jolly good training for becoming an author. In both occupations you have to sit at a desk for hours on end when you'd rather be out in the pubs, and to live on practically nothing. Though I must admit it was only late in the course that I developed this knack for the studious life. The old uncle had become even stickier with the money after a surprise visit to my new digs one evening, when the landlady answered his question, 'Is this where Mr Grimsdyke lives?' with, 'That's right, sir, bring 'im in and mind 'is poor 'ead on the doorstep.'

I also found that writing a book, like taking out an appendix, looks rather easier from the appearance of the finished product than it is. The snag in writing a book about hospitals is that everyone imagines the atmosphere inside resembles the closing stages of a six-day bicycle race, while the operating theatre is really a relaxed and friendly place, like a well-run garage. Also, the public thinks all surgeons are high-principled and handsome, though most of them are little fat men with old pyjamas under their operating gowns, mainly worried about getting the next hernia done in time to have a decent lunch. My hero, one Clifford Standforth, FRCS, was a brilliant, upright, serious young surgeon, and somehow he didn't seem the sort of chap who'd last half an hour at St Swithin's without getting his leg pulled by everyone down to the first-year students.

After a few weeks, with foolscap on the floor as thick as the snow on a Christmas card, I found myself like any other hermit in pressing need of a decent meal and some conversation, and I invited myself round to Miles' flat for dinner. I thought I could finally pass on Sir Lancelot's remarks about slapping chaps on the back a bit more, but I found the fellow in an even deeper condition of acute melancholia.

'What's up now?' I asked. 'Sir Lancelot still creating about that car park?'

'Barefoot,' Miles replied.

'Oh,' I said.

'He's putting up for the job, too.'

'Unfortunate,' I agreed.

'Everything's against me,' muttered Miles. 'I thought the fellow had settled down for life as Reader in Surgery at West Riding.'

'He's your only serious rival, I suppose?'

'As ever,' agreed Miles bitterly. 'You've never said a word, I suppose, Gaston? Not about the true story?'

I shook my head. 'Not even to Connie.'

'Thank you, Gaston. I appreciate that deeply.'

I felt so unhappy for him I had to help myself to some of his whisky and soda. The Barefoot incident was the only shady part of old Miles' rather sad salad days. Everyone at St Swithin's thought it pretty mysterious at the time, the general rumour being that the poor chap had suffered a nervous breakdown following years of chronic overwork, which was highly gratifying to students like myself who believed in long periods of recuperation between exams.

It all happened just before Miles went up for his finals before either of us had yet run into Connie. Charlie Barefoot was a small, untidy pink chap who resembled a cherub in glasses, and the pair of them had met their first week in St Swithin's, over that beastly dogfish.

'I say, isn't that Hume's _Treatise on Human Nature_ you have there?' asked Miles, waiting for the class to start one morning.