CHAPTER TWELVEThe personal humility of all medical men is jeopardised throughout their career by the fact that one of the disadvantages of their profession is that they should be treated with much greater seriousness than any other visitor to the normal household. Their lightest words are hung upon and they receive every hour the flattery of absorbed attention. Some noble natures can stand up to this and some cannot, but there is a small class which turns a disadvantage into an asset and thrives upon the thing that should defeat it.
Dr Harvey Buxton-Coltness was one of these. Critical colleagues told each other bitterly that it was Buxton-Coltness’ conceit alone which kept him on the register. His head, they said, was like a balloon which lifted him gently over morass and crevice, bearing
