The Summer of Sir Lancelot

jacket. ‘But by George! You‘d better be bloody good.‘
    ‘I think our next step should be an X-ray,‘ announced Simon a few minutes later.
    ‘I am extremely gratified,‘ declared Sir Lancelot, doing up his cuff-links, ‘that your exhaustive history and examination should have brought you to the conclusion I already provided.‘
    ‘I‘ll take you down to X-ray myself,‘ continued Simon calmly, signing the form. ‘Yes, Crimes?‘
    ‘Thought you‘d like to know 7 , Mr Sparrow, we‘re making quite a stand at Lord‘s. Eighty-six for one, sir, and his Reverence has got his fifty. Sorry to see you‘ve lost the use of your legs, sir,‘ he added to Sir Lancelot from the door.
    ‘You keep a civil tongue in your head, you pantomime Dracula,‘ snapped the surgeon. ‘No, I do not want that beastly pink shawl! Get a move on, Simon man, for God‘s sake. Can‘t you see I‘ve already had more than enough to put up with this morning?‘
    The X-ray Department at St Swithin‘s was a cellar under Out Patients, originally designed for the storage of such hospital necessities as splints, strait-jackets, coal, and the Governors‘ port. About the start of the century one of the younger surgeons acquired a machine for emitting the Röntgen rays, and was given a corner down there to play with it — the fellow was clearly a mug for passing fads, having already bought himself one of those motor cars.
    Since the nineteen-hundreds X-ray apparatus has flourished in the cellar like mushrooms, into a frightening jungle of clicking and sparking machinery which certainly alarmed the pretty little girl alone in the tiny waiting-room — she was perhaps a sister of Miss Fernlove‘s — who thought it all as spooky as the Ghost Train at Battersea Fun Fair. Having an X-ray was pretty silly anyway, she reflected, because everyone knew she caught her cough when the mingy office turned off the central heating prompt on the first of April. But it was a morning off, and something to talk about all afternoon, and now they saw how she‘d landed up in hospital they might keep the central heating on a bit longer next year.
    She looked from her magazine as a handsome doctor in a white coat brought in some poor old man with a beard. He must have been a very sick old man, she felt soulfully, because the doctor was making a terrible fuss of him.
    ‘I‘ll fetch the senior radiographer, Sir Lancelot, if you‘ll kindly go into that cubicle and remove your coat and shirt.‘
    ‘I presume I sit here in a state of profound hypothermia until you return?‘
    ‘Oh, no, there‘s a garment in there to slip on. Perfectly sanitary,‘ Simon added quickly. ‘It‘s washed between patients.‘
    The pretty girl went back to her magazine, until she found one of those ladies in white overalls saying to her, ‘We‘re almost ready now, my dear. Just go into the cubicle and slip off your dress and bra. You‘ll find a smock thing in there to put on.‘
    The smock thing was a bit weird, the girl had to admit, but she made herself look as pretty as possible before going back to her magazine. The poorly gentleman was still there, sitting on a chair reading that dull newspaper without any pictures. Suddenly she trembled. The old man was staring at her, with a look which fair chilled the blood in the veins. She gave a little gulp. The pair of them were all alone. The same thoughts shot into her head as had struck Clarice and Edna in midstream. The assault -such a widespread hazard for pretty young girls these days, it seemed - was actually about to descend on her. She drew her breath. The old man‘s mouth moved. His hands clenched and unclenched. She jumped up. She screamed.
    ‘Good God, what‘s the matter?‘ gasped the handsome doctor, rushing in with another lady in white.
    ‘It‘s him!‘ The pretty girl directed a trembling red-tipped finger. ‘He‘s looking at me something awful!‘
    ‘Madam,‘ shouted the poor old man, ‘I do wish you would stop having hysterics. I have merely been wondering, since you stepped out of the cubicle, whether you would have the kindness atter your X-ray examination of letting me have my shirt back?‘
    Simon shrugged his shoulders. ‘Looks even better on a man,‘ was all he could bring himself to say.
     

5
     
    Sir Lancelot Spratt strode down Piccadilly. It was five o‘clock the same day and still sunny enough to keep the policemen in their shirtsleeves, the pigeons dozing on the balconies, and the