All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot Page A

dear chap,” he cooed. “Just look at you. Red in the face, all tensed up. You mustn’t let yourself get upset like this; you must try to relax. Why do you think professional men are cracking up all over the country with coronaries and ulcers? Just because they allow themselves to get all steamed up over piffling little things like you are doing now. Yes, yes, I know these things are annoying, but you’ve got to take them in your stride. Keep calm, James, calm. It just isn’t worth it—I mean, it will all be the same in a hundred years.”
    He delivered the sermon with a serene smile, patting my shoulder reassuringly like a psychiatrist soothing a violent patient.
    I was writing a label on a jar of red blister a few days later when Siegfried catapulted into the room. He must have kicked the door open because it flew back viciously against the rubber stop and rebounded almost into his face. He rushed over to the desk where I was sitting and began to pound on it with the flat of his hand. His eyes glared wildly from a flushed face.
    “I’ve just come from that bloody swine Holt!” he shouted.
    “Ned Holt, you mean?”
    “Yes, that’s who I mean, damn him!”
    I was surprised. Mr. Holt was a little man who worked on the roads for the county council. He kept four cows as a sideline and had never been known to pay a veterinary bill; but he was a cheerful character and Siegfried had rendered his unpaid services over the years without objection.
    “One of your favourites, isn’t he?” I said.
    “Was, by God, was,” Siegfried snarled. “I’ve been treating Muriel for him. You know, the big red cow second from the far end of his byre. She’s had recurrent tympany—coming in from the field every night badly blown—and I’d tried about everything. Nothing did any good. Then it struck me that it might be actinobacillosis of the reticulum. I shot some sodium iodine into the vein and when I saw her today the difference was incredible—she was standing there, chewing her cud, right as rain. I was just patting myself on the back for a smart piece of diagnosis, and do you know what Holt said? He said he knew she’d be better today because last night he gave her half a pound of epsom salts in a bran mash. That was what had cured her.”
    Siegfried took some empty cartons and bottles from his pockets and hurled them savagely into the wastepaper basket. He began to shout again.
    “Do you know, for the past fortnight I’ve puzzled and worried and damn nearly dreamt about that cow. Now I’ve found the cause of the trouble, applied the most modern treatment and the animal has recovered. And what happens? Does the owner express his grateful thanks for my skill? Does he hell—the entire credit goes to the half point of epsom salts. What I did was a pure waste of time.”
    He dealt the desk another sickening blow.
    “But I frightened him, James,” he said, his eyes staring. “By God, I frightened him. When he made that crack about the salts, I yelled out ‘You bugger!’ and made a grab for him. I think I would have strangled him, but he shot into the house and stayed there. I didn’t see him again.”
    Siegfried threw himself into a chair and began to churn his hair about. “Epsom salts!” he groaned. “Oh God, it makes you despair.”
    I thought of telling him to relax and pointing out that it would all be the same in a hundred years, but my employer still had an empty serum bottle dangling from one hand. I discarded the idea.
    Then there came the day when Siegfried decided to have my car rebored. It had been using a steady two pints of oil a day and he hadn’t thought this excessive, but when it got to half a gallon a day he felt something ought to be done. What probably decided him was a farmer on market day saying he always knew when the young vet was coming because he could see the cloud of blue smoke miles away.
    When the tiny Austin came back from the garage, Siegfried fussed round it like an old hen.