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A Triumph of Surgery
A Triumph of Surgery
Introduction
Tricki, a small dog, is pampered and overfed by his rich mistress, Mrs Pumphrey.
He falls seriously ill and his mistress consults a veterinary surgeon, Dr. Harriot.
Mrs Pumphrey loves her dog, Tricki very much and is unable to refuse him
anything he wants. Tricki, is fond of eating cream cakes and chocolates. So, one
day when Mrs. Pumphrey is out with Tricki for a walk the narrator sees them and
stops to talk. While talking to Mrs. Pumphrey he realises that she has been
overfeeding Tricki and also had been giving him things that he shouldn’t eat due to
which Tricki had started looking like a bloated sausage. Soon Tricki got unwell
and Mrs. Pumphrey has to call Mr. Herriot (narrator) for help. She does not want to
send him away but the only way suggested by Mr. Herriot is to get him
hospitalised for 15 days. Then the story unfolds into how he gets well.
Summary
The story starts when Mrs. Pumphrey, a rich lady takes her dog out for a walk. A
nearby veterinary doctor who knows the lady sees the dog and is shocked as he
sees that the dog looks like a bloated sausage with a leg at each end. He advises her
to stop giving him unhealthy foods to eat but Mrs. Pumphrey is not able to refuse
him. Soon he falls sick and the doctor is called for help. The narrator, Mr. Herriot
then somehow takes Tricki to the hospital even though he knows that Mrs.
Pumphrey is not ready to leave her dog and nearly fainted just by hearing these
words. Then he takes the dog along and puts a bed for him in his surgery. The dog
doesn't move much nor eats anything for the first two days. On the second day he
looks around and whimpers a bit. He wanted to go out on the third day and started
playing with the other stray dogs when he was taken out. He also licked the bowls
of other dogs.
Then his condition started improving very fast. He started fighting for his meals
with other dogs. Then when this news reached Mrs. Pumphrey, she started sending
him eggs as she thought that Tricki was recovering from an illness and needed
energy foods. Mr. Herriot and his partners started eating those eggs for morning
breakfast. Then for improving Tricki’s blood, Mrs. Pumphrey started sending in
bottles of wine which was again consumed by Mr. Herriot. He used to take two
glasses before lunch and some more glasses while having his lunch. Then when
she started sending in bottles of brandy for Tricki that was the time when Mr.
Herriot thought that he would really like to keep Tricki as a permanent guest in the
surgery. Mr. Herriot used to be really happy someday by having two extra eggs
every morning. Then having few glasses of wine in the afternoon and closing the
day by having brandy at night. But then he took a wise decision and called up Mrs.
Pumphrey as she was really worried and, on this side, Tricki was ready to be taken
back home. Tricki was really happy to see his mistress and jumped into the car.
Mrs. Pumphrey said that she won't be able to ever thank him for what he had done
and also, that his surgery had been successful as Tricki was now cured.