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staffed by thousands upon thousands of highly trained – and, I must admit, fittingly remunerated – professional administrators. Were the whole country wiped out by plague tomorrow, the National Health Service would still be justified by the perfection of its administrative machinery.’
    ‘New housemen or new bedlinen today,’ Mr Grout reflected, ‘need fourteen separate approvals.’
    ‘Exactly,’ Mr Clapper told him proudly. ‘Unlimited outside help.’
    ‘And take about four months to get.’
    ‘Naturally, it needs time to communicate from the bottom of this ingenious structure to the top and back again. But it ensures that no action is taken with reckless haste. That will be all,’ he said, with the air of a cat dismissing its mouse. ‘Don’t forget the shirt.’
    ‘There’s one of the students to see you, Mr Clapper.’
    ‘He’s not my pigeon, Mr Grout. Send him to the dean.’
    ‘He’s not exactly a student, Mr Clapper. He’s failed his finals, apparently. He wants a job as hospital porter.’
    Mr Clapper leant back, pudgy fingertips together. Mr Grout saw at once that he had presented his superior with an administrative problem, and one as diverting as a clue from some untaxing crossword puzzle. ‘He has been expelled from the medical school? Right. Therefore he is simply a member of the general public. Agreed? Therefore he is eligible to be employed by the National Health Service, in the appropriate grade at the appropriate salary and with the appropriate deductions for his eventual old age pension. I see no difficulty. None whatsoever. We shall have the advantage of his knowing his way round the hospital.’ Mr Clapper hesitated. ‘Is he, er, ah – ?’
    ‘He comes from Somerset, Mr Clapper.’
    ‘Good!’
    In the Bertram Bunn Wing few of the patients could speak English, in St Swithin’s itself few of the domestic staff. The hospital enjoyed a regular supply of home-grown young graduates from its medical school, so avoiding the necessity in less favoured institutions of issuing their doctors with phrase books explaining in Oriental languages what British patients meant by such alarming complaints as, ‘I’ve got a frog in my throat’. The St Swithin’s overseas recruits were largely research workers, who could be kept harmlessly in laboratories until it was time to go home again. And everyone agreed that Sir Lancelot Spratt was unfair in claiming that, to be sure his basic surgical instructions were followed over the years, he had been obliged to learn a smattering of Hindi, Tamil, Chinese – embracing Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Swatow, Foochow, Wenchos, Ning-po and Wu – Arabic, Spanish, the Pitsu of the Afghanistans, which was distinct from their Persian and unwritten Turki, Serbo-Croat, Hebrew and Gaelic. It was Mr Clapper who wished he had command of all these languages, or at least that their speakers would learn English.
    ‘You deal with him,’ directed Mr Clapper. ‘I’m busy. How about references?’
    ‘He gave the names of two West Country bishops.’
    ‘That sounds quite reliable. Don’t forget to see that he signs for his brown coat.’
    Mr Grout left Mr Clapper staring pleasantly at his rows of buttons, wondering who to summon next.
    ‘The duties appertaining to the hospital porters,’ said Mr Grout, sitting behind his cheap desk and screwing up his eyes while Pip in turn stood respectfully opposite, ‘are one, the movement of patients, two the movement of meals, three the movement of drugs and laundry Oh, and bodies. And of course cleaning. We have a porters’ pool.’
    He opened his eyes to stare at Pip. ‘It’s in the basement. A highly efficient system evolved by Mr Clapper, after extensive time-and-motion studies. There must always be a porter or two standing by for emergencies, but Mr Clapper has so arranged the work-schedules that none of you remain idle for more than a minimum period of time. Mr Clapper is very proud of it. Did you know that each