Part 5 (1/2)
”Yes--I am,” said I.
”Oh,” said he, ”that's different. You are our engagement. Come up to my office, and I'll fix you up in a jiffy.”
So we marched five long blocks up to his office, where I was soon stretched out, and the desired operation put through with neatness and despatch.
”Well, doctor,” said I as he held the offending molar up before me tightly gripped in his forceps, ”you have given me the first moment of relief I have had all day. My debt in grat.i.tude I shall never be able to repay, but the other I think I can handle. How much do I owe you?”
”Nothing at all, Mr. Bangs,” he replied. ”Nothing at all.”
”Oh, that's nonsense, doctor,” I retorted. ”You are a professional man, and I am a stranger to you--you must charge something.”
”Oh, no, Mr. Bangs,” said he, smilingly. ”You are no stranger to me. I have been reading your books for the past twenty years, and _it's a positive pleasure to pull your teeth_.”
V
A VAGRANT POET
The inimitable and forever to be lamented Gilbert, in one of his delightful songs in Pinafore, bade us once to remember that--
Things are seldom what they seem-- Skim-milk masquerades as cream; Highlows pa.s.s as patent-leathers; Jackdaws strut in peac.o.c.k's feathers.
The good woman who sang this song--little b.u.t.tercup, they called her--was in a pessimistic mood at the moment; for had she not been so she would have reversed the sentiment, showing us with equal truth how sometimes cream masquerades as skim milk, and how underneath the wear and tear of time what outwardly appears to be a ”high low” still possesses some of the glorious polish of the ”patent leather.”
Everywhere I travel I find something of this latter truth; but never was it more clearly demonstrated than when on one of my Western jaunts I came unexpectedly upon an almost overwhelming revelation of a finely poetic nature under an apparently rough and unpromising exterior.
It happened on a trip in Arizona back in 1906. My train after pa.s.sing Yuma was held up for several hours. Ordinarily I should have found this distressing; but, as the event proved, it brought to me one of the most delightfully instructive experiences I have yet had in the pursuit of my platform labors. As the express stood waiting for another much belated train from the East to pa.s.s, the door of the ordinary day coach--in which I had chosen to while away the tedium of the morning, largely because it was fastened to the end of the train, whence I could secure a wonderful view of the surrounding country--was opened, and a man apparently in the last stages of poverty entered the car.
He was an oldish man, past sixty, I should say, and a glance at him caused my mind instinctively to revert to certain descriptions I had heard of the sad condition of the downtrodden Westerner, concerning whose unhappy lot our friends the Populists used to tell us so much. He looked so very poor and so irremediably miserable that he excited my sympathy. Upon his back there lay loosely the time-rusted and threadbare remnant of what had once in the days of its pride and freshness been a frock coat, now b.u.t.tonless, spotted, and fringing at the edges. His trousers matched. His neck was collarless, a faded blue polka-dotted handkerchief serving as both collar and tie. His hat suggested service in numerous wars, and on his feet, bound there for their greater security with ordinary twine, were the uppers and a perforated part of the soles of a one-time pair of congress gaiters. As for his face--well, it brought vividly to mind the lines of Spenser--
His rawbone cheekes, through penurie and pine, Were shronke into his jawes, as he did never dyne.
[Ill.u.s.tration: In the last stages of poverty.]
The old fellow shambled feebly to the seat adjoining my own, gazing pensively out of the window for a few moments, and then turning fixed a pair of penetrating blue eyes upon me. ”Pretty tiresome waiting,” he ventured, in a voice not altogether certain in its pitch, as if he had not had much chance to use it latterly.
”Very,” said I carelessly. ”But I suppose we've got to get used to this sort of thing.”
”I suppose so,” he agreed; ”but just the same for a man in your business I should think it would be something awful. Don't it get on your nerves?”
”What do you know about my business?” I asked, my curiosity aroused.
”Oh,” he laughed, ”I know who you are. I read one of your books once.
I've forgotten what it was about; but it had your picture in the front of it, and I knew you the minute I saw you. Besides I was down in Tucson the other day, and--you're going to lecture at Tucson Tuesday night, aren't you?”
”I am if I ever get there,” said I. ”At this rate of speed I'm afraid it'll be season after next.”
”Well, they'll be ready for you when you arrive,” he chuckled. ”They've got your picture plastered all over the place. It's in every drug-store and saloon window in the town. They've got it tacked onto every tree, hydrant, hitching post, billboard, and pump, from the railway station out to the university and back. I ain't sure that there ain't a few of 'em nailed onto the ash barrels. You can't look anywhere without seeing John Kendrick Bangs staring out at you from the depths of a photographer's arm chair. Fact is,” he added with a whimsical wink, ”I left Tucson to get away from the Bangs rash that's broken out all over the place, and, by Jehosaphat! I get aboard this train, and _there sets the original_!”
I laughed and handed the old fellow a cigar, which he accepted with avidity, biting off at least a quarter of it in his eagerness to get down to business.