The Spike: or, Victoria University College Review October 1911

Little Journeys with the Doctor

Little Journeys with the Doctor.

I.

"If you give that handle a sharp turn to the left, she'll star," said the Doctor.

"That's all very well," I replied, "but for the last ten minutes I've been giving it turns to the left sharp enough to shave with."

I'm awfully sorry. I see I've forgotten to turn on the magneto. It's silly of you to expect her to go without the magneto. Try again now."

We started then, and had not been going long when a rooster crossed our bows some fifty yards ahead.

"If you run over that rooster," I said, in one of those unguarded moments that come to me on a fine day when I'm trying to forget all about Garrow, "you will be guilty of a tort, and his next of kin will sue you for damages."

"What is a tort?" asked the Doctor, and the tragedy was afoot.

"Surely you know what a tort is. If you don't, I shan't tell you, because it's already had far too much attention paid to it in a book by a man called Salmond, and I don't intend to make it more conceited than it is."

The Doctor laughed. It was a nasty laugh and I could tell from the key in which it was pitched that it was not at any joke of mine.

"I suppose you think that, because I got only 15 percent. In Garrow's last exam., I don't know what a tort is. You mustn't put too much faith in those marks, because it's only Johnny Morrison who corrects the papers, and he knows less about the law than most people. I'll show you: "A tort is"—and I gave him the full definition, just leaving out a few lines and some of the more important words for the sake of brevity.

"I see," he said. So if I catch a man in my house at the dead of night letting my pet stethoscope off the chain or some of my favourite pastilles out of their tin for a run, I catch him at a tort."

"You catch him at a very inopportune time. Perhaps my definition forgot to tell you that a tort is a civil wrong, and no civil wrong would disturb you at that time of the night. Your true tort, whatever else he may be, is always punctiliously polite."

"I see. Well, suppose I have a patient—"

"Hold on," I interrupted, "can't you find enough examples among the probabilities?'

"Suppose I have a patient," he continued, with a fine assumption of contempt, "who comes to me for examination. When I ask him for my fee he executes a simple parry and asks me for the loan of a bob. Do I sue him for a tort."

"No, you kick him for a retort. Stupid. If my definition did not mention that a tort is not a breach of contract, it was only because that is an open secret, known to all the best families."

"A very open definition, too; in fact, the quintessence of philanthropy. Don't you think, though, it overdoes it just a little on the generous side? But I see now. Suppose I leave—"

"Suppose you leave off. I'll buy you Salmond's pretty book for your next birthday. You'll find it most exciting and I don't want to spoil your pleasure by telling you the whole plot of the story now."

The Doctor laughed. It was a nasty laugh and I could tell from the key in which it was pitched that it was not at any joke of mine.

II.

"If you turn that handle sharply to the left, she'll start," said the Doctor.

"And if you turn that magneto switch sharply to the right, she'll start even better," said I.

It was a perfect afternoon, and we went spinning along one of the roads that had the good sense to lead out of Rome. What all the roads do when they get to Rome, except become very dirty, has always puzzled me.

The Doctor had quitted the crooked ways of the tort, and was now prancing like an unbroken colt in the misty and guttural realms of the German language.

"I know not what is the meaning


Of all my sorrow and tears."

he recited in German; at least I presumed that the language in which he recited had once been distinctly connected by marriage with German. Whenever the Doctor tells me he is going to recite something in German, I know in advance that he is going to ponder on the meaning of his sorrow and tears. His repertoire is as yet confined to them.

"I'll tell you, if you ask me nicely," I said on this occasion. They mean that your egg was cold this morning, and you can't think of the past tense of those strong and active German verbs."

"Do you call those verbs active," he replied. "Why, they do nothing but loaf about and wait for the end of the sentence to come their way. Then they hook on casually and you stumble across them when you're dead tired. Those lively little English devils would knock spots out of them any day."

"Perhaps so, but wait till you meet their irregulars. The Pluperfect Conditional Subjunctive is a rare old fighter."

That quietened him down considerabley, and all went right till a tyre went wrong. The Doctor called it a "blow-out."

"So that," I said, selecting the newest Railway Time-table from a pocket of the car, "is a blow-out. I hope to buy a car myself one of these days, and I shall certainly order two or three spare blow-outs."

"Lend a hand there" came from somewhere in the rear of the car.

"Never," I said. "Both my feet, my epiglottis and my vermiform appendix are yours to do with as you pleas; but my hand never. It is already given to another. And I think these seats of yours need re-upholstering, and the cigarettes you keep in here are rotten."

A great clanking as of chains came from underneath the car.

"A tort is a civil wrong" I whispered softly to myself. And then I laughed. It was a nasty laugh, and from the key in which it was pitched the Doctor could tell that it was not at any joke of his.