Surgeon at Arms

was exposed by the promised radical surgery of the tribunal, he fancied even the memory of the present feast would induce in his hosts an attack of acute dyspepsia.
    Graham found himself sitting next to a young Member of Parliament with junior rank in the Government, though he was vague what, and felt it would be discourteous to reveal such ignorance. Graham was far too self-centred to have much interest in politics, a quality which, combined with his exhibitionism, might have made him a successful politician. He had troubled neither to vote in the recent election, nor even to hear Churchill’s broadcast speeches during the war. Like most medical people, he saw mankind less as noble sufferers in adversity than as sadly muddle-headed ignoramuses, to be saved from themselves by well-educated ladies and gentlemen as kindly as possible. With a lazy if reasonable over-simplification, Graham wrote off the Tories as appealing to the populace’s natural greed, and the Socialists to its natural envy. If the Government were now trying to organize everyone’s life from the cradle to the grave he felt it probably a sound idea, most inhabitants of a growingly complicated world being incapable of even crossing the road with impunity. Long ago in the days of the first Lord Cazalay, he had grasped that politicians ran to their own rules, as detached from those of everyday life as the rules of some game of cards. You had to let them get up to whatever they wished, running your life as best you could and allowing for their existence like the bacteria contaminating every article you touched.
    The young M.P. revealed himself over the soup as a strong enthusiast for the coming National Health Service.
    ‘My father,’ he explained forcefully to Graham, ‘suffered from bad eyes. He couldn’t afford to attend a doctor, or an optician, or anyone qualified for the job. Do you know what he was obliged to do? Go to one of the cheap sixpenny stores, where they had a card affair, with those different-sized letters on it. Right on the counter, among all the tubes of toothpaste. He’d pick up lenses and try them till he found the right ones. Thousands of sufferers from bad eyesight had to do exactly the same. Those cheap stores were providing a valuable social service on behalf of their shareholders, if they but knew it. But it’s disgraceful, isn’t it, Sir Graham. In future, every citizen will be entitled to a properly fitted pair of spectacles as a right. Just as he’s entitled to clean water or the protection of the law.’
    ‘It’ll probably be equally expensive,’ Graham demurred mildly.
    The politician’s gesture brushed this aside impatiently. ‘Naturally, there’ll be a pent-up demand, but the whole point of a proper health service is that it gets progressively cheaper. When people are given the proper treatment they’ve been denied through poverty—not to mention given better working conditions, better houses, and a higher standard of living from decent wages—the need for medicines and doctors will simply diminish. We’ll all live healthier and longer. Eh, Sir Graham?’ He grinned. ‘As a medical man, mustn’t you agree?’
    ‘But if we all live longer we’ll simply suffer more intractable ailments and need even more doctors.’
    ‘Sir Graham! You’re belittling your profession. What about the inevitable great advances in curative medicine?’
    ‘And the inevitable increases in expensive drugs? Penicillin’s a dreadful price as it is.’ Graham felt uneasy entering in an argument with a professional debater, but to his relief the waiter interrupted by serving the main course. ‘What on earth’s this?’ he exclaimed in surprise.
    ‘Whale steak,’ the M.P. told him proudly. ‘We’re importing tons of it to eke out the meat ration. I assure you it’s absolutely delicious.’
    Then the young man began talking equally energetically about India, a subject which bored Graham even more than cricket.
    It was clear that Haileybury was enjoying the occasion immensely. He rose to make a short if wholly un-memorable speech, and as they prepared to break up Graham noticed with amusement he was noticeably flushed with official port.
    ‘Graham, old fellow, if you’re going my way perhaps we can stroll together?’ Haileybury suggested with an unknown heartiness.
    ‘I’m not going anywhere in particular. Shall we take a turn round St. James’s Park? We’ve plenty to talk about.’
    As they walked round the