DOCTOR IN CLOVER

But I suppose we'd both better get on with some work. There's really so much revision to get through. What are the ninety-four causes of haematuria?'

When Miles next met Dulcie, he explained he couldn't spare his Saturday afternoons from studying any longer.

'But you really must get some fresh air,' she insisted. 'After all, now I'm a staff nurse and know all about these things. Lack of sunlight can reduce your vitamin D right down to danger-level.'

'Damn vitamin D!' exclaimed Miles. 'And A, B, and C as well.'

'Miles!' she said, horrified at such blasphemy.

'I'm sorry, dear. I'm a bit irritable these days. It's only the pressure of work.'

'Are you sure that's all? You're looking terribly peaky.'

'Yes, of course that's all.'

Old Miles is fundamentally honest, which has nearly wrecked more careers than his own. He disliked telling Dulcie a lie. But how could he explain that he wished the ruddy woman were dead? A couple of years in the rough-and-tumble of the hospital wards has changed far worldlier young fellows than my cousin. As a junior student he'd been surprised at any girl smiling at him. Now he was almost a doctor and got smiles all round, some of them very pretty ones. And he could no longer dissuade himself that the woman was a shocking bore.

'Are you sure you're getting enough sleep?' Dulcie went on. 'The Professor says seven hours is the normal minimum. And what about your diet? I'm certain you're not taking nearly enough calories. Dr Parsons gave us a smashing lecture about them yesterday.'

'Very interesting, dear. How would you like to pass the afternoon? Shall we go round an art gallery?'

'If you don't think it would tire you too much. From the way you walk about, Miles, I'm not at all sure you haven't got flat feet.'

The wedding was planned for a fortnight after the examinations, and I was already wondering how to raise the rent of a Moss Bros. suit. I hadn't seen anything of Miles for weeks, and supposed he was swotting steadily for the exam. In fact, he was mostly sitting in Mrs Capper's parlour trying to find some honourable escape from his obligations short of suicide. After my own later experiences in Porterhampton, I could sympathize with the chap. He told me afterwards he'd almost reached for Murrell's Poisons before the answer appeared, with the clarity of all great inspirations.

Miles decided deliberately to fail his exam.

Even I could appreciate the simplicity of the scheme. Miles couldn't sit again for another six months, and by then Dulcie Crimpole might have got tired of waiting. She might have got a sister's job miles away in the North. She might have got run over by an ambulance. At least he wouldn't be walking up the aisle with her in exactly six weeks' time.

'Hello!' exclaimed Barefoot, arriving home from his tramp in the Chilterns. 'You're looking much happier with life tonight.'

Personally, I always find the day of the examinations as unattractive as the Day of Judgement, but Miles and Barefoot strode into the examination hall a few weeks later without flinching.

'Good luck, Miles,' whispered Barefoot, as they separated among the schoolroom desks just far enough apart to make cribbing rather tantalizing.

My cousin smiled, 'This time you don't need any, Charlie.'

Miles told me he did well in the written paper-bottling up that knowledge from Mrs Capper's parlour would have been almost as heartbreaking for him as marrying Nurse Crimpole. Besides, the clinical session presents more opportunities for spectacular failure under the eye of the examiner himself. When a few mornings later Miles approached the bedside of his allotted examination case, he felt both determined and serene.

'Well, my boy,' began the examiner, appearing after the interval they give you for diagnosis, 'what do you find wrong with your patient?'

'I am afraid, sir,' said Miles, 'that I can't make a diagnosis of anything at all.'

The examiner seized him by the hand.

'Congratulations! We've put in a perfectly normal man, and you'd be horrified at the peculiar diagnoses I've had to put up with all morning. Mr Miles Grimsdyke, isn't it? I thought so. Only a student of your outstanding ability could have seen through our little deception. Excellent, my dear sir!

Good morning.'

Poor old Miles staggered into the street, gripped by an alarming thought-after all those years of being an academic athlete it was impossible for him to fail an examination at all. He made his way from the hall in a daze, wondering what the devil to do. There was still the oral examination that afternoon. He'd half a mind simply to clear off to the cinema instead, but they'd only give him another appointment like a candidate taken ill. The vision of Nurse Crimpole rose before him, wearing a wedding dress.

When he finally focused on his surroundings, he found himself facing a sign announcing THE RED LION-Ales and Spirits.