We frequently dropped in at Dr. Lai's place.

     There was a large rectangular table in the reception room.  Various kinds of newspapers were always on the table.

     We made ourselves at home in this room, coming and going as we pleased, sometimes with a group and sometimes alone.

     Whether he was there or not, we would enter freely, read the newspapers, have debates, and leave at will.

     Most of the time when Dr. Lai was not in, he was out on a doctor's call.  But, when he was in, he would be busy with his stethoscope and doing examinations of his many patients.

Sometimes I could hear him talking with his patients.
But we took no notice at all of the doctor's existence, and he appeared to take no notice of our existence either.

     Yet this explanation does not seem quite right.  I wonder if it was not the kind of situation where the members of a family are always faced with each other, that is, when there is no empty seat.  I have always had this feeling ever since I received the announcement of his death.
But in those days he did not concern himself with us, and we were happy enough that he did not.
     Even so, when he was free he would come join the group in the reception room.  He wandered in and out of the room so casually that we did not pay any attention, and he did not seem to pay any attention either.

     It was just like members of a family who do not have any particular feeling when seeing each other at home.

     However, it was not that I had no impression of Dr. Lai at all.  When I recollect my memories of Dr. Lai of bygone days I am reminded of the impression I got of Lu Hs?P, from photographs, of course.  I felt something you find in a rural scholar, simple and light, and completely entrusting.  Of course this is not my very first impression of him;  it is the culmination of many impressions I had at that time.

     Whenever we were not feeling well, we would sit quietly on a round stool in front of the doctor.  I took off my shirt and out came his stethoscope.

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