Laughing Gas (6 page)

I waited no longer. If this wasn't the psychological moment, I didn't know a psychological moment when I saw one. I leaned forward. 'Darling,' I was just about to say, 'stop me if you've heard this before, but will you be my wife?' when something suddenly went off like a bomb inside my head, causing me to drop the subject absolutely.

It happened in a flash. One moment, I was all fire and romance, without a thought for anything except that the girl who was sitting beside me was the girl I loved, and that I was jolly well going to put her in touch with the facts: the next, I was hopping round in circles with my hand pressed to my cheek, suffering the tortures of the damned.

Whether by pure spontaneous combustion, or because I had inadvertently taken aboard too large a segment of ice-cream, the old Havershot wisdom tooth had begun to assert its personality.

I had had my eye on this tooth for some time, and I suppose I ought to have taken a firm line with it before. But you know how it is when you're travelling. You shrink from entrusting the snappers to a strange dentist. You say to yourself 'Stick it out, old cock, till you get back to London and can toddle round to the maestro who's been looking after you since you were so high.' And then, of course, you cop it unexpectedly, as I had done.

Well, there it was. A fellow can't pour out his soul under those conditions. In fact, I don't mind admitting that at that juncture all thoughts of love and marriage and little feet and what not had passed for the nonce completely out of my mind. With a hasty word of farewell, I left her sitting and proceeded to the chemist's shop by the Beverley-Wilshire Hotel in quest of temporary relief. And next day I was in the dentist's waiting-room, about to keep my tryst with I. J. Zizzbaum, the man behind the forceps.

So here we are again at the point where, if you remember, I originally wanted to start the story, only my literary pal headed me off. There I was, as I told you, sitting in an arm-chair, and across the room in another arm-chair, turning the pages of the
National Geographic Magazine,
was a kid of the Little Lord Fauntleroy type. His left cheek, like mine, was bulging, and I deduced that we were both awaiting the awful summons.

He was, I observed, a kid of singular personal beauty. Not even the bulge in h
is cheek could conceal that. He
had large, expressive eyes and golden ringlets. Long lashes hid these eyes as he gazed down at his
National Geographic Magazine.

I never know what's the correct course to pursue on occasions like this. Should one try to help things along with a friendly word or two, if only about the weather? Or is silence best? I was just debating this question in ray mind, when he opened the conversation himself.

He lowered his
National Geographic Magazine
and looked across at me.

'Where,' he asked, 'are the rest of the boys?'

Chapter
5

His meaning eluded me. I didn't get him. A cryptic kid. One of those kids, who, as the expression is, speak in riddles. He was staring at me enquiringly, and I stared back at him, also enquiringly.

Then I said, going straight to the point and evading all side issues:

'What boys?'

'The newspaper boys.'

'The newspaper boys?'

An idea seemed to strike him.

'Aren't you a reporter?'

'No, not a reporter.'

'Then what are you doing here?'

'I've come to have a tooth out.'

This appeared to surprise and displease him. He said, with marked acerbity:

'You can't have come to have a tooth out.' 'Yes, I have.'

'But I've come to have a tooth out.' I spotted a possible solution.

'Perhaps,' I said, throwing out the suggestion for what it was worth, 'we've both come to have a tooth out, what? I mean to say, you one and me another. Tooth A and Tooth B, as it were.'

He still seemed ruffled. He eyed me searchingly.

'When's your appointment?'

'Three-thirty.'

'It can't be. Mine is.'

'So is mine. I. J. Zizzbaum was most definite about that. We arranged it over the phone, and his words left no loophole for misunderstanding. "Three-thirty," said I. J. Zizzbaum, as plain as I see you now.'

The kid became calmer. His alabaster brow lost its frown, and he ceased to regard me as if I were some hijacker or bandit. It was as if a great light had shone upon him.

'Oh, I. J. Zizzb mm?' he said. 'B. K. Burwash is doing mine.'

And, looking about me, I now perceived that on either side of the apartment in which we sat was a door. On one of these doors Was imprinted the legend:

And on the other:

B. K. BURWASH

The mystery was solved. Possibly because they were old dental college chums, or possibly from motives of economy, these two fang-wrenchers shared a common waiting-room.

Convinced now that no attempt was being made to jump his claim, the kid had become affability itself. Seeing in me no rival for first whack at the operating-chair, but merely a fellow human being up against the facts of life just as he was, he changed his tone to one of kindly interest.

'Does your tooth hurt?'

'Like the dickens.'

'So does mine. Coo!'

'Coo here, too.'

'Where does it seem to catch you most?' 'Pretty well all the way down to the toenails.' 'Me, too. This tooth of mine is certainly fierce. Yessir!' 'So is mine.'

'I'll bet mine's worse than yours.' 'It couldn't be.'

He made what he evidently considered a telling point.

'I'm having gas.'

I came right back at him.

'So am I.'

'I'll bet I need more gas than you.'

‘I’ll
bet you don't.'

‘I’ll
bet you a trillion dollars I do.'

It seemed to me that rancour was beginning to creep into the conversation once more, and that pretty soon we would be descending to a common wrangle. So, rather than allow the harmony of the proceedings to be marred by a jarring note, I dropped the theme and switched off to an aspect of the matter which had been puzzling me from the first. You will remember that I had thought this kid to have spoken in riddles, and I still wanted an explanation of those rather mystic opening words of his.

'You're probably right,' I said pacifically. 'But, be that as it may, what made you think I was a reporter?'

'I'm expecting a flock of them here.'

'You are?'

'Sure. There'll be camera men, too, and human interest writers.'

'What, to see you have a tooth out?'

'Sure. When I have a tooth out, that's news.'

'What!
'

'Sure. This is going to make the front page of every paper in the country.' 'What, your tooth?'

'Yay, my tooth. Listen, when I had my tonsils extracted last year, it rocked civilization. I'm some shucks, I want to tell you.'

'Somebody special, you mean?'

'I'll say that's what I mean. I'm Joey Cooley.'

Owing to the fact that one of my unswerving rules in life is never to go to a picture if I am informed by my spies that there is a child in it, I had never actually set eyes on this stripling. But of course I knew the name. Ann, if you remember, had spoken of him. So had April June.

'Oh, ah,' I said. 'Joey Cooley, eh?'

'Joey Cooley is correct.'

'Yes, I've heard of you.'

'So I should think.'

'I know your nurse.'

*My what?'

'Well, your female attendant or whatever she is. Ann Bannister.'

'Oh, Ann? She's an all-right guy, Ann is.' 'Quite.'

'A corker, and don't let anyone tell you different.' 'I won't.'

'Ann's a peach. Yessir, that's what Ann is.'

'And April June was talking about you the other day.'

'Oh, yeah? And what did she have to say?'

'She told me you were in her last picture.'

'She did, did she?' He snorted with not a little violence, and his brow darkened. It was plain that he was piqued. Meaning nothing but to pass along a casual item of information, I appeared to have touched some expose
d nerve. 'The crust of that dame!
In
her
last picture, eh? Let me tell you that
she
was in
my
last picture!'

He snorted a bit more. He had taken up the
National Geographic Magazine
again, and I noted that it quivered in his hands, as if he were wrestling with some powerful emotion. Presently the spasm passed, and he was himself again.

'So you've met that pill, have you?' he said.

It was my turn to quiver, and
1
did so like a jelly.

'That what?'

'That pill.'

'Did you say "pill"?'

' "Pill" was what I said. Slice her where you like, she's still boloney.' I drew myself up.

'You are speaking,' I said, 'of the woman I love.'

He started to say something, but I raised my hand coldly and said 'Please,' and silence supervened. He read his
National Geographic Magazine.
I read mine. And for some minutes matters proceeded along these lines. Then I thought to myself: 'Oh, well, dash it,' and decided to extend the olive branch. Too damn silly, I mean, a couple of fellows on the brink of having teeth out simply sitting reading the
National Geographic Magazine
at one another instead of trying to forget by means of pleasant chitchat the ordeal which lay before them. 'So you're Joey Cooley?' I said.

He accepted the overture in the spirit in which it was intended.

'You never spoke a truer word,' he replied agreeably. 'That's about who I am, if you come right down to it. Joey Cooley, the Idol of American Motherhood. Who are you?'

'Havershot's my name.' 'English, aren't you?' 'That's right.' 'Been in Hollywood long?' 'About a week.' 'Where are you staying?'

'I've a bungalow at the Garden of the Hesperides.'

'Do you like Hollywood?'

'Oh, rather. Topping spot.'

'You ought to see Chillicothe, Ohio.'

'Why?'

'That's where I come from. And that's where I'd like to be now. Yessir, right back there in little old Chillicothe.' 'You're homesick, what?' 'You betcher.'

'Still, I suppose you have a pretty good time here?' His face clouded. Once more, it appeared, I had said the wrong thing. 'Who, me? I do not.' 'Why not?'

'I'll tell you why not. Because I'm practically a member of a chain gang. I couldn't have it much tougher if this was Devil's Island or the Foreign Legion or sump'n. Do you know what?'

'What?'

'Do you know what old Brinkmeyer did when the contract was being drawn up?' 'No, what?'

'Slipped in a clause that I had to live at his house, so that I could be under his personal eye.'

'Who is this Brinkmeyer?'

'The boss of the corporation I work for.'

'And you don't like his personal eye?'

'I don't mind him. He's a pretty good sort of old stiff. It's his sister Beulah. She was the one who put him up to it. She's the heavy in the sequence. As tough as they come. Ever hear of Simon Legree?'

'Yes.'

'Beulah Brinkmeyer. Know what a serf is?' 'What you swim in, you mean.'

'No, I don't mean what you swim in. I mean what's downtrodden and oppressed and gets the dirty end of die stick all the time. That's me. Gosh, what a life! Shall I tell you something?'

'Do.’

'I'm not allowed to play games, because I might get hurt. I'm not allowed to keep a dog, because it might bite me. I'm not allowed in the swimming-pool, because I might get drowned. And, listen, get this one. No candy, because I might put on weight.'

'You don't mean that?'

'I do mean that. It's in my contract. "The party of the second part, hereinafter to be called the artist, shall abstain from all ice-creams, chocolate-creams, nut sundaes, fudge, and all-day suckers, hereinafter to be called candy, this to be understood
to comprise doughnuts, marshmal
lows, pies in their season, all starchy foods, and twice of chicken." Can you imagine my law
yer letting them slip that over
'

I must say I was a bit appalled. We Havershots have always been good trenchermen, and it never fails to give me a grey feeling when I hear of somebody being on a diet. I know how I should have felt at his age if some strong hand had kept me from the sock-shop.

'I wonder you don't chuck it.'

‘I can't.’

'You love your Art too much?' 'No, I don't.'

'You like bringing sunshine into drab lives in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati?'

‘I
don't care if Pittsburgh chokes. And that goes for Cincinnati, too.'

'Then perhaps you feel that all the money and fame make up for these what you might call hideous privations?'

He snorted. He seemed to have as low an opinion of money and fame as April June.

'What's the good of money and fame? I can't eat them, can I? There's nothing I'd like better than to tie a can to the whole outfit and go back to where hearts are pure and men are men in Chillicothe, Ohio. I'd like to be home with mother right now. You should taste her fried chicken, southern style. And she'd be tickled pink to have me, too. But I can't get away. I've a five years contract, and you can bet they're going to hold me to it.'

'I see.'

'Oh, yes, I'm Uncle Tom, all right. But listen, shall I tell you something? I'm biding my time. I'm waiting. Some day I'll g
row up. And when I do, oh, baby!
'

'Oh what?'

'I said "Oh, baby!
"
I'm going to poke Beulah Brink
meyer right in the snoot.'

'What! Would you strike a woman?'

'You betcher I'd strike a woman. Yessir, she'll get hers. And there's about six directors I'm going to poke in the snoot, and a whole raft of supervisors and production experts. And that press agent of mine. I'm going to poke him i
n the snoot, all right. Yessir!
Matter of fact,' he said, summing up, 'you'd have a tough time finding somebody I'm not going to poke in the snoot, once I'm big enough. I've got all their names in a little notebook.'

He relapsed into a moody silence, and I didn't quite know what to say. No words of mine, I felt, could cheer this stricken child. The iron had plainly entered a dashed

sight too deep into his soul for a mere 'Buck up, old bird!' to do any good.

However, as it turned out, I would have had no time to deliver anything in the nature of a pep talk, for at this moment the door opened and in poured a susurration of blighters, some male, some female, some with cameras, some without, and the air became so thick with interviewing and picture-taking that it would have been impossible to get a word in. I just sat reading my
National Geographic Magazine.
And presently a white-robed attendant appeared and announced that B. K. Burwash was straining at the forceps, and the gang passed through into his room, interviewing to the last.

And not long after that another white-robed attendant came and said that I. J. Zizzbaum would be glad if I would look in, so I commended my soul to God, and followed her into the operating theatre.

Chapter 6

I. J.
Z
izzbaum
proved to be rather a gloomy cove. He looked like a dentist with a secret sorrow. In reply to my 'Good afternoon,' he merely motioned me to the chair with a sombre wave of the hand. One of those strong, silent dentists.

I, on the other hand, was at my chattiest. I am always that way when closeted with a molar-mangier. I dare say it's the same with you. I suppose one's idea is that if one can only keep the conversation going, the blighter may get so interested that he will shelve the dirty work altogether in favour of a cosy talk. I started in right away.

'Hullo, hullo, hullo. Here I am. Good afternoon, good afternoon. What a lovely day, what? Shall I sit here? Right ho. Shall I lean my head back? Right ho. Shall I open my mouth? Right ho.'

'Wider, please,' said I. J. Zizzbaum sadly.

'Right ho. Everything set for the administration of the old laughing gas? Good. You know,' I said, sitting up, 'it's years since I had gas. I can't have been more than twelve. I know I was quite a kid, because it happened when I was at a private school, and of course one leaves one's private school at a very tender age. And, talking of kids, who do you think I met in the waiting-room? None other than little Joey Cooley. And it's an odd coincidence, but he's having gas, too. Shows what a small world it is, what?'

I broke off, abashed. It did not need the quick wince of pain on I. J. Zizzbaum's mobile face to tell me that I had made a bloomer and said the tactless thing. I could have kicked myself.

Because it had suddenly flashed upon me what the trouble was and why he was not this afternoon the sunny I. J. Zizzbaum whose merry laugh and gay quips made him, no doubt, the life and soul of the annual dentists' convention. He was brooding on the fact that the big prize in the dentistry world, the extraction of little Joey Cooley's bicuspid, had gon
e to his trade rival, B. K, Bur
wash.

No doubt he had been listening in on all that interviewing and camera-clicking, and the shrill cries of the human interest writers as they went about their business must have made very bitter hearing - rubbing it in, I mean to say, that old Pop Burwash was going to get his name on the front page of all the public news-sheets and become more or less the World's
Sweetheart, while all he, Zizz
baum, could expect was my modest fee.