Doctor On The Boil by Richard Gordon Page A

planning to – er, end up in St Swithin’s? It would save a lot of those difficult transport problems.’
    ‘My dear Bingham, I cannot make detailed plans for the location of the event. I am going to perish, not have a bleeding baby.’
    ‘Of course. Now, then. Liver?’
    ‘As you wish.’
    ‘Spleen? Pancreas?’
    ‘You may.’
    ‘Thyroid gland? Bone marrow?’
    ‘Take the lot.’
    ‘I’ve just remembered something. We owe High Cross Hospital a kidney, which they swapped for a pair of lungs. If you could help us out–’
    Sir Lancelot drew himself up. ‘I may, as you say, be exceptional. But not so exceptional as to possess three blasted kidneys. Now if you will excuse me, I shall take your surgical shopping list out to the West End and provide it with a damn good dinner.’

8
    Sir Lancelot left the surgical block and paced, deep in thought, down the long main corridor of the old building towards the hall. As he reached the front door he became aware of a dark uniform blocking his path. Looking up, he saw Harry the porter.
    ‘Might I have a word with you, sir?’
    Sir Lancelot grunted.
    Harry gave a nervous jerk of the head towards his cubicle. ‘In private, like?’
    ‘Are you suggesting I squeeze with you into that rabbit-hutch?’
    Harry produced from inside his jacket a thick bundle of five-pound notes. ‘It’s about that little bet you mentioned yesterday, sir. The one what I put on for you at Kempton Park the very day of your retirement. I’m very sorry, sir, that I overlooked sending on your winnings.’
    ‘Overlooked! Do you expect me to believe it was merely something which slipped what you care to call your mind? Rubbish, man. You’re as crooked as an aberrant appendix. You’ve never overlooked the chance to swindle someone out of a ha’penny in your life. You’d con the rawest new student to buy a load of old instruments you’d probably pinched anyway, and you’d pawn the Chairman of Governors’ overcoat if you thought you could get away with it. God knows what a scoundrel like you is doing in the employment of a respectable institution like St Swithin’s. Personally, I wouldn’t trust you to punch the tickets on a travelling Chinese brothel–’
    Sir Lancelot stopped. He raised his hand to his eyes. The reference to the East exploded a bomb in his mind.
    ‘My dear good man,’ he continued gently. ‘I was wrong, very wrong to get so cross. We all have our faults. What are yours, compared with the majestic tide of life and death, which sweeps away all traces of us from the sands of time? Pray, keep the money.’
    Harry stared at him, half of his brain wondering if Sir Lancelot had gone mad, the other half trying to make out what the catch was.
    ‘It is mere paper, of no importance.’ Sir Lancelot pushed the man’s hand aside. ‘Put it to some good use. How little to pay for the pleasure your cheerful face has given me, every morning I arrived in the hospital, sticking from that hole thing in your cubicle. Good-bye, Harry. May you prosper. And do get out of that stupid habit of always backing the second favourite.’
    As he turned away, pausing in the doorway to find his handkerchief and give a cough, he heard a female voice call his name.
    ‘Why, it’s the matron–’ He came back to the hall, giving a brave smile, ‘And what can I do for you?’
    ‘I’m so glad I caught you. It’s about Nurse Smallbones.’ Sir Lancelot frowned in puzzlement. ‘You may remember, when you arrived in the hospital yesterday you seemed to find her skirt too short.’
    ‘I most certainly did,’ he said warmly. ‘If our young ladies walk the streets of London off-duty displaying their erotogenic zones by the acre, that is perfectly all right by me. But when they’re in St Swithin’s they’re nurses, not the star turns of striptease establishments.’
    ‘I do hope Nurse Smallbones will meet with your approval now.’ The girl was standing sheepishly behind her. ‘She has lengthened her