Doctor On Toast by Richard Gordon Read Free Book Online

done, then ’twere well it were done quickly”. I shall summon the brats.’
    A few minutes later I was able to make a closer inspection of the Bishop’s two youngest.
    Hilda was a pale thin girl suffering from crooked eyes and crooked teeth, both of which were undergoing rather ostentatious clinical correction. Randolph was short and dark, with a nasty scowl and a general air of wanting to go and blow something up. I was rather at a loss to open the conversation, because I’m never at my best with children. I don’t think Sir Lancelot was either, but he always solved the problem simply by refusing to admit they existed, and treating anyone past the age of weaning just like another adult.
    ‘You children will kindly jump into the back of my car and we can get started,’ he commanded. ‘If either of you feels the slightest inclination to vomit you are to inform me at once.’
    ‘So kind of you to take them, my dear Lancelot.’ The Bishop appeared in the doorway. ‘My poor wife is still far from herself. It is turning into some form of migraine, I fear. Most distressing. But it would be such a shame to disappoint the little darlings, wouldn’t it? Now if you’ll excuse me, I shall get back to the fire. The weather is extremely treacherous these winter days, don’t you think?’
    We left, Sir Lancelot slamming all the car doors in turn.
    ‘How I am to bring myself to spend three whole weeks under the same roof as that feller without developing acute paranoid schizophrenia is totally beyond my comprehension,’ he exploded, pressing a button to put the children out of earshot behind the glass partition of his Rolls. ‘Not content with his wife making a first-class exhibition of herself in front of my guests yesterday evening, he ruins my breakfast this morning by describing minutely all his symptoms during the night. “I never closed my eyes for a second”, he said. And I could hear him snoring his head off till the milk arrived.’
    ‘I suppose even clerics are a bit easy with the Ninth Commandment when it comes to telling their doctors how little they sleep,’ I suggested.
    The surgeon snorted. ‘I don’t want so much as a word about him in my biography, understand? My own family is bad enough, but Maud’s is the ruddy limit.’
    He blew the horn as he narrowly missed turning a cyclist into an orthopaedic case in the middle of the Marylebone Road.
    ‘Perhaps I should have informed you about my relations a little more fully,’ Sir Lancelot continued in a calmer voice, as we nosed into Regent’s Park. ‘I am one of five brothers, none of whom has been on speaking terms since the measles. Two I should prefer not to mention. Of the others, my youngest brother George ran away to sea at an early age after a misunderstanding with the Vicar over the choir funds. Though I am glad to say he has subsequently redeemed himself to some measure by becoming – Damnation! It’s starting to snow.’
    ‘Perhaps we should put it off till next week?’ I suggested. There was still time to hold Ophelia’s hand over the teacakes.
    ‘Certainly not. I refuse to have next Sunday utterly ruined as well. Now come along you children,’ commanded Sir Lancelot, lowering the partition as we drew up before the Zoo gates. ‘Button your coats and blow your noses and we’ll be off.’
    We stepped out of the car.
    The snow was settling on Sir Lancelot’s Ulster and started to run down my neck in that nasty mocking way it has. It had just struck me that nobody else could possibly be so idiotic to visit the Zoo on an afternoon like that, when I noticed a chap waiting by the turnstile. He was a small, seedy-looking fellow in an old mackintosh and a bowler, with a floppy moustache and gold-rimmed glasses and carrying an attaché case. Just as we formed up behind him I was a bit startled to see him give a little jump and start retreating backwards down the pavement.
    ‘After you, my dear sir, after you,’ boomed Sir Lancelot.
    The