Part 13 (2/2)

Dr. Plott's eyes would have said: ”This is my thirteenth visit this morning, and I've eighteen more to do, and it's all very tedious. Why _do_ you people let yourselves get ill--if it's a fact that you really are ill? I don't think you are, but I'll see.” Dr. Veiga's eyes said: ”How interesting your case is! You've had no luck this time. We must make the best of things; but also we must face the truth. G.o.d knows I don't want to boast, but I expect I can put you right, with the help of your own strong commonsense.”

Mr. Prohack, a connoisseur in human nature, noted the significances of the Veiga glance, but he suspected that there might also be something histrionic in it. Dr. Veiga examined heart, pulse, tongue. He tapped the torso. He asked many questions. Then he took an instrument out of a leather case which he carried, and fastened a strap round Mr. Prohack's forearm and attached it to the instrument, and presently Mr. Prohack could feel the strong pulsations of the blood current in his arm.

”Dear, dear!” said Dr. Veiga. ”175. Blood pressure too high. Much too high! Must get that down.”

Eve looked as though the end of the world had been announced, and even Mr. Prohack had qualms. Ten minutes earlier Mr. Prohack had been a strong, healthy man a trifle unwell in a bedroom. He was suddenly transformed into a patient in a nursing-home.

”A little catarrh,” said Dr. Veiga.

”I've got no catarrh,” said Mr. Prohack, with conviction.

”Yes, yes. Catarrh of the stomach. Probably had it for years. The duodenum is obstructed. A little accident that easily happens.”

He addressed himself as it were privately to Mrs. Prohack. ”The duodenum is no thicker than that.” He indicated the pencil with which he was already writing in a pocket-book. ”We'll get it right.”

”What is the duodenum?” Mr. Prohack wanted to cry out. But he was too ashamed to ask. It was hardly conceivable that he, so wise, so prudent, had allowed over forty years to pa.s.s in total ignorance of this important item of his own body. He felt himself to be a bag full of disconcerting and dangerous mysteries. Or he might have expressed it that he had been smoking in criminal nonchalance for nearly half a century on the top of a powder magazine. He was deeply impressed by the rapidity and a.s.surance of the doctor's diagnosis. It was wonderful that the queer fellow could in a few minutes single out an obscure organ no bigger than a pencil and say: ”There is the ill.” The fellow might be a quack, but sometimes quacks were men of genius. His shame and his alarm quickly vanished under the doctor's rea.s.suring and bland manner. So much so that when Dr. Veiga had written out a prescription, Mr. Prohack said lightly:

”I suppose I can get up, though.”

To which Dr. Veiga amiably replied:

”I shall leave that to you. Perhaps if I tell you you'll be lucky if you don't have jaundice...! But I think you _will_ be lucky. I'll try to look in again this afternoon.”

These last words staggered both Mr. and Mrs. Prohack.

”I've been expecting this for years. I knew it would come.” Mrs. Prohack breathed tragically.

And even Mr. Prohack reflected aghast:

”My G.o.d! Doctor calling twice a day!”

True, ”duodenum” was a terrible word.

Mrs. Prohack gazed at Dr. Veiga as at a high priest, and waited to be vouchsafed a further message.

”Anyhow, if I find it impossible to call, I'll telephone in any case,”

said Dr. Veiga.

Some slight solace in this!

Mrs. Prohack, like an acolyte, personally attended the high priest as far as the street, listening with acute attention to his recommendations. When she returned she had put on a carefully bright face. Evidently she had decided, or had been told, that cheerfulness was essential to ward off jaundice.

”Now that's what I _call_ a doctor,” said she. ”To think of your friend Plott...! I've telephoned for a messenger boy to go to the chemist's.”

”You're at liberty to call the man a doctor,” answered Mr. Prohack. ”And I'm at liberty to call him a fine character actor.”

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