Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories Part 41

"I'm a D.D.S."

"Do tell! All I ever took was the first three degrees. Gimme the grip and the pa.s.sword and I'll believe you."

"That ain't a Masonic symbol," said he. "I'm a dentist--a bony fido dentist, with forceps and a little furnace and a gas-bag and a waitin'-rooms". He swelled up and bit a hang-nail off of his cigar.

"Yep! A regular toothwright."

Naturally I was surprised, not to say awed. "Have you got much of a practice?" I made bold to ask.

"Um-m--It ain't what it ought to be, still I can't complain. It takes time to work into a fas.h.i.+onable clienteel. All I get a whack at now is Injuns, but I'm gradually beginnin' to close in on the white teeth."

Now this was certainly news to me, for Mike was a foot-racer, and a good one, too, and the last time I'd seen him he didn't know nothing about teeth, except that if you ain't careful they'll bite your tongue. I figured he was lyin', so I said:

"Where did you get your degree--off of a thermometer?"

"Nothing of the tall. I run it down. I did, for a G.o.d's fact. It's like this: three months ago I crep' into this burg lookin' for a match, but the professions was overcrowded, there bein' fourteen lawyers, a half-dozen doctors, a chiropodist, and forty-three bartenders here ahead of me, not to speak of a tooth-tinker. That there dentist thought he could sprint. He come from some Eastern college and his pa had grub-staked him to a kit of tools and sent him out here to work his way into the confidences and cavities of the Idahobos.

"Well, sir, the minute I seen him I realized he was my custard. He wore sofy cus.h.i.+ons on his shoulders, and his coat was cut in at the back. He rolled up his pants, too, and sometimes he sweetened the view in a vi'lent, striped sweater. I watered at the mouth and picked my teeth over him--he was that succ'lent.

"He'd been lookin' down on these natives and kiddin' 'em ever since he arrived, and once a week, reg'lar, he tried to frame a race so's he could wear his runnin'-pants and be a hero. I had no trouble fixin'

things. He was a good little runner, and he done his best; but when I breasted the tape I won a quick-claim deed to his loose change, to a brand-new office over a drug-store, and to enough nickel-plated pliers for a wire-tapper. I staked him to a sleeper ticket, then I moved into his quarters. The tools didn't have no directions on 'em, but I've figgered out how to use most of 'em."

"I gather that this here practice that you're buildin' up ain't exactly remunerative," I said to Mike.

"Not yet it ain't, but I'm widenin' out. There ain't a day pa.s.ses that I don't learn something. I was out drummin' up a little trade when your groans convinced me that somebody in here had a jumpin'

toothache. If you ain't busy, mebbe you can help me get a patient."

This particular saloon had about wore out its welcome with me, so I was game for any enterprise, and I allowed a little patient-huntin'

would prob'ly do me good. I drawed my six gun and looked her over.

"It's a new sport, but I bet I'll take to it," said I. "What d'you do, crease 'em or cripple 'em?"

"Pshaw! Put up that hea.r.s.e ticket," Mike told me. "Us doctors don't take human life, we save it."

"I thought you said you was practisin' on Injuns."

"Injuns is human. For a fact! I've learned a heap in this business.

Not that I wouldn't bust one if I needed him, but it ain't necessary.

Come, I'll show you."

This here town had more heathens than whites in it, and before we'd gone a block I seen a buck Injun and his squaw idlin' along, lookin'

into the store winders. The buck was a hungry, long-legged feller, and when we neared him Mike said to me:

"Hist! There's one. I'll slip up and get him from behind. You grab him if he runs."

This method of buildin' up a dental practice struck me as some strange, but b.u.t.ters was a queer guy and this was sort of a rough town. When he got abreast of Mr. Lo, Mike reached out and garnered him by the neck. The Injun pitched some, but Mike eared him down finally, and when I come up I seen that one side of the lad's face was swelled up something fearful.

"Well, well," said I. "You've sure got the dentist's eye. You must have spied that swellin' a block away."

Mike nodded, then he said: "Poor feller! I'll bet it aches horrible.

My office is right handy; let's get him in before the marshal sees us."

We drug the savage up-stairs and into Mike's dental stable, then we bedded him down in a chair. He protested considerable, but we got him there in a tollable state of preservation, barring the fact that he was skinned up on the corners and we had pulled a hinge off from the office door.

"It's a shame for a person to suffer thataway," Mike told me; "but these ignorant aborigines ain't educated up to the mercies of science.

Just put your knee in his stummick, will you? What could be finer than to alleviate pain? The very thought in itself is elevatin'. I'm in this humanity business for life--Grab his feet quick or he'll kick out the winder."

"Whoa!" I told the Injun. "Plenty fix-um!" I poked the swellin' on his face and he let out a yelp.

"It's lucky we got him before multiplication set in," Mike a.s.sured me.

"I lay for 'em that-away at the foot of the stairs every day; but this is the best patient I've had. I've a notion to charge this one."

"Don't you charge all of 'em?" I wanted to know.

"Nope. I got a tin watch off of one patient when he was under gas, but the most of 'em ain't worth goin' through. You got to do a certain amount of charity work."

"Don't look like much of a business to me," I said.

"There's something about it I like," Mike told me. "It sort of grows on a feller. Now that you're here to help catch 'em, I calc'late to acquire a lot of skill with these instruments. I've been playin' a lone hand and I've had to take little ones that I could handle."

When Mike produced a pair of nickel-plated nail-pullers, Mr. Injun snorted like a sea-lion, and it took both of us to hold him down; but finally I tied his hair around the head-rest and we had him. His mane was long and I put a hard knot in it, then I set on his moccasins while Doctor b.u.t.ters pried into his innermost secrets.

"There she is--that big one." Mike pointed out a tooth that looked like the corner monument to a quartz claim.

"You're on the wrong side," I told him.

"Mebbe I am. Here's one that looks like it would come loose easier."

Mike got a half-Nelson over in the east-half-east quarter-section of the buck's mouth and throwed his weight on the pliers.

The Injun had pretty well wore himself out by this time, and when he felt those ice-tongs he just stiffened out--an Injun's dead game that-away; he won't make a holler when you hurt him. His squaw was hangin' around with her eyes poppin' out, but we didn't pay no attention to her.

Somehow Mike's pinchers kept jumpin' the track and at every slip a new wrinkle showed in the patient's face--patient is the right word, all right--and we didn't make no more show at loosenin' that tusk than as if we'd tried to pull up Mount Bill Williams with a silk thread. At last two big tears come into the buck's eyes and rolled down his cheeks. First time I ever seen one cry.

Now that weakness was plumb fatal to him, for right there and then he cracked his plate with his missus. Yes, sir, he tore his s.h.i.+rt-waist proper. The squaw straightened up and give him a look--oh, what a look!

"Waugh!" she sniffed. "Injun heap big squaw!" And with that she swished out of the office and left him flat. Yes, sir, she just blew him on the spot.

I s'pose Mike would have got that tooth somehow--he's a perseverin'

party--only that I happened to notice something queer and called him off.

"Here, wait a minute," said I, and I loosened him from the man's chest. Mike was so engorsed in the pursuit of his profession that he was astraddle of his patient's wishbone, gougin' away like a quartz miner. "Take your elbow out of his mouth and lemme talk to him a minute." When the savage had got his features together, I said to him, "How you catch um b.u.mp, hey?" And I pointed to his jaw.

"Bzz-zz-zz!" said he.

I turned to Doctor b.u.t.ters. "Hornet!" I declared.

When Mike had sized up the bee-sting he admitted that my diagnosis was prob'ly correct. "That's the trouble with these patients," he complained. "They don't take you into their confidence. Just the same, I'm goin' to attend to his teeth, for there's no tellin' when I'll catch another one."