the staircase smelt savoury, so I had decided to stay.
I had been given a room the shape of a cheese-dish tucked under the roof, which was filled with a polished brass bedstead and was as awkward to undress in as a telephone box. There was a bathroom next door with plumbing apparently designed by Emmett, and a threadbare sitting-room downstairs containing a curly marble fireplace, a set of The British Campaign in France and Flanders , and a picture of a fat female albino peeping through a waterfall entitled “Psyche In Her Bath Glen Gurrick Distilleries Ltd”. This room was filled nightly with the “commercials”, red-faced men in blue suits who I felt were welcome for ensuring both variety of company and maintenance of the catering standards. The hotel’s regulars were composed of faded old ladies and retired schoolteachers. Then there was Mr Tuppy.
Mr Tuppy was the hotel’s funny man. I first met him at dinner the day of my arrival, when he entered the dining-room with the self-assurance of Danny Kaye taking the stage at the Palladium and demanded in general “Is there a doctor in the house?” This simple remark sent everyone into roars of laughter. Sitting at the table next to mine, he tucked his napkin under his chin and continued to make funny remarks about doctors while I tried to concentrate solemnly on the Lancet . When he shortly struck up a conversation he expressed overwhelming surprise that I happened to be of the medical profession, but by this time I was clearly established as his straight man.
“Knew a feller who went to the doctor’s once,” he told everyone over his steak pie. “Had a throat complaint. Couldn’t talk above a whisper. Our professional friend here will know all about it, eh, won’t you, Doctor? Anyway, this feller – went to the doctor, see. Door opened by a beautiful blonde – all right, Mrs Knottage, you won’t have to leave the room – where was I? Oh, yes. Door opened by smashing blonde. Feller says in a hoarse whisper, ‘Is the doctor at home?’ Blonde whispers back, ‘No, he isn’t – come on in.’”
The old ladies roared loud enough to shake the medicine bottles on their tables, while I tried to raise as good-natured a grin as possible.
“Reminds me of another one,” Mr Tuppy breezed along, helping himself to more potatoes. “Chap goes to a psychiatrist – our professional friend here knows what a psychiatrist is, eh? Feller who goes to the Windmill and looks at the audience. Well, chap goes to psychiatrist, see. Says, ‘Nothing’s wrong with me, doctor – only these red beetles and blue lizards crawling all over me.’ ‘All right,’ says the psychiatrist. ‘But don’t keep brushing them all over me.’”
Collapse of everyone, including Mrs Knottage. I later unwisely tried to combat Mr Tuppy by telling a joke about doctors myself, but no one seemed to think it at all funny. I made an even bigger mistake in offering some mild chaff to Joan, our anaemic waitress. She accepted from Mr Tuppy a run of innuendo which would have had the proprietors of any teashop telephone the police, but to me she said frozenly she was not that sort at all, thank you, which lowered me even further in the estimation of my fellow-guests. Mr Tuppy also had an annoying habit of appearing for breakfast rubbing his hands and declaring “Hail shining morn, don’t say it’s kippers again,” and of raising the special glass of brown ale to his lips every lunch and supper with the expression “Lovely grub – you can feel it doing you good!” I shortly developed the habit of sitting with clenched fists waiting for these remarks, and it became clear that I should suffer permanent psychological damage unless I shortly made a change of accommodation.
8
When I began to look for other lodgings seriously I had been in Hampden Cross almost three months, By then the shadow of the Abbey was falling noticeably earlier across our doorstep, the draughts in the surgery were finding
I had been given a room the shape of a cheese-dish tucked under the roof, which was filled with a polished brass bedstead and was as awkward to undress in as a telephone box. There was a bathroom next door with plumbing apparently designed by Emmett, and a threadbare sitting-room downstairs containing a curly marble fireplace, a set of The British Campaign in France and Flanders , and a picture of a fat female albino peeping through a waterfall entitled “Psyche In Her Bath Glen Gurrick Distilleries Ltd”. This room was filled nightly with the “commercials”, red-faced men in blue suits who I felt were welcome for ensuring both variety of company and maintenance of the catering standards. The hotel’s regulars were composed of faded old ladies and retired schoolteachers. Then there was Mr Tuppy.
Mr Tuppy was the hotel’s funny man. I first met him at dinner the day of my arrival, when he entered the dining-room with the self-assurance of Danny Kaye taking the stage at the Palladium and demanded in general “Is there a doctor in the house?” This simple remark sent everyone into roars of laughter. Sitting at the table next to mine, he tucked his napkin under his chin and continued to make funny remarks about doctors while I tried to concentrate solemnly on the Lancet . When he shortly struck up a conversation he expressed overwhelming surprise that I happened to be of the medical profession, but by this time I was clearly established as his straight man.
“Knew a feller who went to the doctor’s once,” he told everyone over his steak pie. “Had a throat complaint. Couldn’t talk above a whisper. Our professional friend here will know all about it, eh, won’t you, Doctor? Anyway, this feller – went to the doctor, see. Door opened by a beautiful blonde – all right, Mrs Knottage, you won’t have to leave the room – where was I? Oh, yes. Door opened by smashing blonde. Feller says in a hoarse whisper, ‘Is the doctor at home?’ Blonde whispers back, ‘No, he isn’t – come on in.’”
The old ladies roared loud enough to shake the medicine bottles on their tables, while I tried to raise as good-natured a grin as possible.
“Reminds me of another one,” Mr Tuppy breezed along, helping himself to more potatoes. “Chap goes to a psychiatrist – our professional friend here knows what a psychiatrist is, eh? Feller who goes to the Windmill and looks at the audience. Well, chap goes to psychiatrist, see. Says, ‘Nothing’s wrong with me, doctor – only these red beetles and blue lizards crawling all over me.’ ‘All right,’ says the psychiatrist. ‘But don’t keep brushing them all over me.’”
Collapse of everyone, including Mrs Knottage. I later unwisely tried to combat Mr Tuppy by telling a joke about doctors myself, but no one seemed to think it at all funny. I made an even bigger mistake in offering some mild chaff to Joan, our anaemic waitress. She accepted from Mr Tuppy a run of innuendo which would have had the proprietors of any teashop telephone the police, but to me she said frozenly she was not that sort at all, thank you, which lowered me even further in the estimation of my fellow-guests. Mr Tuppy also had an annoying habit of appearing for breakfast rubbing his hands and declaring “Hail shining morn, don’t say it’s kippers again,” and of raising the special glass of brown ale to his lips every lunch and supper with the expression “Lovely grub – you can feel it doing you good!” I shortly developed the habit of sitting with clenched fists waiting for these remarks, and it became clear that I should suffer permanent psychological damage unless I shortly made a change of accommodation.
8
When I began to look for other lodgings seriously I had been in Hampden Cross almost three months, By then the shadow of the Abbey was falling noticeably earlier across our doorstep, the draughts in the surgery were finding
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