The Dean was not only late but in a tearing hurry. He briefly welcomed us to St. Swithin's, made a few remarks about its history and traditions, rapidly ran through the ethics of the medical profession, and explained that in future we would be bound by professional secrecy, and forbidden to make love to our patients' wives, do abortions, or walk on the grass in the hospital courtyard. He flung a few final remarks of encouragement at his listeners and shot off. His address had lasted seventeen minutes, and the only acknowledgment that the student next to me had made of his presence was folding his paper twice over and reading it under cover of the man in front.
'Oh, he's finished, has he?' said the man with the paper, as the scuffling of students getting to their feet disturbed him. He peered at the clock through his monocle. 'H'm,' he remarked. 'He's cut three minutes off his best time so far. Did he leave out that bit about the hospital traditions?'
'No,' I told him. 'He seemed to have quite a lot to say about them.'
The student raised his free eyebrow. 'Did he now? Then he's speeding up his delivery. Next year I bet the old boy gets it down to fifteen minutes dead.'
I was very afraid of this superior and critical young man, but I could not help asking a question.
'You've heard the lecture before?' I said hesitantly. 'I mean, you haven't just arrived in the hospital like the rest of us?'
'This makes the fourth time I've heard old Lofty say his little piece,' he replied, smiling faintly. 'Wouldn't have come to-day, except that I got the dates mixed. I was expecting an anatomy lecture.'
The rest of the class was filing past us through the door and clattering down the iron stairs. We rose and joined the end of the line.
'You must be a very senior student,' I said respectfully.
'Not a bit of it, old boy.' My companion absently flicked a crumpled piece of paper to one side with his stick. 'I'm not a minute senior to you and the end of the year will probably find me back here again.'
'But surely,' I said from behind him as we descended the stairs, 'if you have four years' study to your credit…'
He laughed.
'Ah, the ingenuousness of youth! Four years' study, or at least four years' spasmodic attendance at the medical school, is of no significance. Exams, my dear old boy, exams,' he explained forcibly. 'You'll find they control your progress through hospital like the signals on a railway line-you can't go on to the next section if they're against you. I've come down in my anatomy four times now,' he added cheerfully.
I condoled with him over this quadruple misfortune.
'Don't sympathize, old boy. I appreciate it, but it's wasted. All my failures were achieved with careful forethought. As a matter of fact, it's much more difficult to fail an examination skilfully than to pass the damn thing. To give that impression of once again just having been unfortunate in the choice of the questions, you know…Come along and have a beer. The King George will be open.'
We crossed the road and the experienced examinee thrust open the door of the saloon bar with his cane. I had meanwhile decided the medical course was a far more complicated affair than I had imagined.
The King George was one of those dark, cosy, pokey little pubs that, like brewers' drays and paralytic drunks, seem to be disappearing from the London drinking scene. The small saloon bar was heavy with dark wood and thick mirrors splashed with gilt _fleurs de lis._ The dingy white ceiling was gathered into plaster rosettes, the lamps sprouted out of the walls on curly metal stems, and in the corner a pale palm drooped over a large brass pot.
The influence of the hospital on the King George was noticeable immediately. Between the mirrors the walls were covered with framed photographs of past rugby and cricket teams, from which there stared down defiantly several hundred young gentlemen who were now respectable and ageing practitioners all over the country. Above the bar, in a glass case like a stuffed pike, was the rugby ball with which the fifteen had once won the hospitals' cup for the third year running. Next to it there hung a large, old-fashioned brass fireman's helmet. Behind the beer taps a fat old man in an apron, waistcoat, and grey trilby hat stared gloomily across the empty bar.
'Good morning, Padre,' my guide called cheerily.
The old man gave a smile of welcome and stretched his hand over the counter.
'Good morning, sir!' he exclaimed. 'Well! This is a treat to see you here again! Back for the new session is it, sir?'
'Every autumn, Padre, I return faithfully to my studies. Allow me to introduce a new student-what's your name, old boy?'
'Gordon-Richard Gordon.'
'Mr. Gordon, Padre. My name's Grimsdyke, by the way,' he explained.
The landlord shook hands heartily.
'And very pleased to meet you, sir!' he said warmly. 'I expect we'll be seeing some more of you in the next five or six years, eh? What's it to be, gentlemen?'
