Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters. Daniel Stashower

       3 The Struggling Doctor (1882-1884)

       It is a wonderful thing to have a house of your own for the first time, however humble it may be.

      —A. CONAN DOYLE, MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES

      George Budd, a year ahead of Conan Doyle at Edinburgh, and from a medical family, was a fierce player on the rugby field. Calling Budd ‘Cullingworth’ in Memories and Adventures (and in The Stark Munro Letters), Conan Doyle noted his ‘bulldog jaw, bloodshot deep-set eyes, over-hanging brows, and yellowish hair as stiff as wire which spurted up above his brows’.

      ‘He was born for trouble and adventure,’ Conan Doyle continued, but ‘for some reason he took a fancy to me.’ Budd had a paranoid streak, was given to brawls, ran off with and married an underaged ward of Chancery, and in his initial practice in Bristol, lived beyond his means. He ran out on his debts there and set up a new practice in Plymouth. And after Conan Doyle returned from Africa, Budd wired him to join what he described as a colossal success.

      ‘A second even more explosive telegram upbraided me for delay and guaranteed me £300 the first year,’ said Conan Doyle. ‘This looked like business, so off I went’—against his mother’s advice. In Plymouth he discovered that Budd, ‘half genius and half quack, had founded a practice worth several thousand pounds’. That it conformed little to the ethics of medicine did not escape his notice, though; Memories and Adventures and The Stark Munro Letters describe Budd’s methods vividly. Writing to Dr Hoare, who also doubted Budd, Conan Doyle assured him of the practice’s success in glowing terms.

      to Dr Reginald Ratcliff Hoare 6 ELLIOT TERRACE, THE HOE, PLYMOUTH, JUNE 1882

      We have both been misjudging Budd in accusing him of romancing. His income may not be exactly 3000, but it certainly cannot be very far off it. He has, as I think I told you, an extraordinary manner, unlike any man that ever was born, and is uncommonly clever too, treating all his cases in an entirely original manner. He managed when he came first to get a few cases which had been discharged from the Infirmary as incurable, and managed to make good jobs of them all; this got into the papers and began to attract people. Then the other medicals began to get jealous; Budd has always had a curious objection to putting his name in the Directory. These fellows noticed the omission and at once published a report that he was an American herbalist. Budd of course at once responded by a notice in the papers that he would show any man his diplomas who called between certain hours—from that day to this his surgery has been crammed. This place is his private residence now & all the business is done at Durnford Street. I know how the thing is done now as I was along there this morning. He went at eleven, and there were three very large waiting rooms chock full of patients—these patients each had a ticket with the number of his turn to see Budd upon it. If any man wanted to go out of his turn he had to pay 10/6, when he had the privilege of passing over the heads of all the people before him. The first seven people who came up to see him this morning all paid their 10/6. Budd says he will be busy with the rest until 6 o’clock tonight taking shillings and half crowns as hard as he can go. Then he comes home to dinner and is free for the remainder of the evening. He does absolutely no work upon either Saturday or Sunday so that he has an uncommonly easy time. Mrs Budd, a pretty slim little girl, does all the dispensing (and very well too). His idea for me now is that we should join and charge families 2 guineas a year for all medical expenses. He says he could get 15000 families to join giving £30,000 per annum, but it strikes me as being rather thin, though really after his extraordinary success hitherto it is hard to say what is possible and what is not.

      A letter to his mother was even more effusive:

      to Mary Doyle PLYMOUTH, JUNE 1882

      You are no doubt anxious to hear how I am getting on. My plate is up—Dr Conan Doyle—surgeon—and very well it looks. I hope now that I may clear more. The first week [was] eight shillings—the next twenty—the third twenty five. This week I am afraid will be a little less. However on the whole it increases, and it is very good for a beginner. I have the use of Budd’s horse and trap which is an advantage. I am keeping steadily out of debt, at present I only owe for my plate & midwifery cards. You must remember that if anything happened to Budd, (which God forbid) I should come in for a very good thing. In any case I hope before September to be doing well enough to start a house of my own, and to that end will save every penny I can. There is a fine opening here, a great many medical men have died lately and the survivors are awful duffers.

      When shall I marry and who? I shall not meet anyone here, that is certain.

      Conan Doyle’s ‘professional manners were very unexciting after [Budd’s] flamboyant efforts, which I could not imitate even if I would,’ he said. The Mam was appalled nonetheless; ‘her family pride had been aroused’. But Conan Doyle ‘admired [Budd’s] strong qualities and enjoyed his company and the extraordinary situations which arose from any association with him’—and ‘this resistance upon my part, and my defence of my friend, annoyed my mother the more, and she wrote me several letters of remonstrance which certainly dealt rather faithfully with his character as it appeared to her.’

      Then one day, six weeks into their association, the mercurial Dr Budd informed Conan Doyle that he was hurting the practice and must go. It was a considerable shock to the younger man, but Budd offered to send £1 a week until he found his feet somewhere else. If his mother had taken a dim view of the association with Budd, the arrangement’s collapse apparently brought fresh recriminations.

      to Mary Doyle PLYMOUTH

      Many thanks for your letters. Why are they all in such a dismal & lachrymose strain. Just at the time when I need a little cheering & encouragement taking my first unaided step into the world with no other aim than to carve out a fortune for yourself and me you do nothing but depress & discourage me. I am beginning to positively dread the sight of an Edinburgh postmark. Write something cheery, like a good little woman, and don’t be always in the dolefuls or we shall set you to revise the Hebrew text of the burial service, or some other congenial occupation. You won’t be so much in the blues about me this time twelve months I warrant. If anyone ought to be dismal it is I who have nothing to look forward to but hard fare and loneliness and an empty house for some weeks or months to come—never a man wanted cheering more. I hardly closed an eye last night planning & scheming.

      There is something to be said for your locum tenens idea—Still you must remember that Doctors rarely take holidays longer than a fortnight (in my experience). That would mean six guineas to me from which the fare one way is to be deducted. Then the chances are that a fortnight or more would elapse before another situation could be got. Competition as you and I know is pretty brisk, and by that time how much of my little sum would be left. No, I am going to