Within a few minutes the man had returned with his card. Now he started hovering round the back of my chair. For a while I pretended to ignore him, then I turned round and demanded angrily, 'What the devil's the matter with you now, daddy?' Why can't you go to the end of the queue like everyone else?'

'Yes, but you see, I am in rather a hurry'

'So is everybody else. So am I, if it comes to that. Now get back to the last bench.'

'Perhaps I should explain-'

'I'm not in the slightest interested. If you don't jump to it I'll get you shifted by one of the policemen.'

His mouth opened in horror. I congratulated myself-I had judged my man shrewdly. A fellow of his type would be frightened by such an indignity.

'Really, I must say, Doctor, it's a most-'

'Now stop arguing. You can't chuck your weight around as usual in here. And for God's sake, daddy, _take your blasted hat off.'_

'What on earth's going on here?'

I spun round, and found the Professor looking down at me. I had hardly spoken to him before, because he was far too occupied with the higher problems of academic surgery to worry about the poultices and fingerstalls of the casualty-room. He was a chilly, scientific man with a gravelly voice and a long nose and chin like Mr Punch. He had only once been known to laugh, the day Sir Lancelot Spratt arrived at the hospital in a brand-new plum-coloured Rolls and was rammed by an ambulance in the courtyard in front of all his students.

'This patient; sir-' I began.

'Are you in some sort of trouble, Charles?' the Professor asked.

'Yes, I am. This young man here has been behaving extremely rudely.'

The Professor looked at me as if I were one of the rats in his laboratory developing an interesting disease.

'Perhaps I had better introduce my friend, Mr Justice Hopcroft,' he said slowly. 'He unfortunately happened to cut his hand while we were lunching at my club. I have been collecting some instruments to suture it.'