“I think,” said the dentist, stepping outside again, “I’d better give you gas.”
Then he moved aside and hummed an air from a light opera while he mixed up cement.
I sat up in my shroud.
“Gas!” I said.
“Yes,” he repeated, “gas, or else ether or a sulphuric anesthetic, or else beat you into insensibility with a club, or give you three thousand bolts of electricity.”
These may not have been his exact words. But they convey the feeling of them very nicely.
I could see the light of primitive criminality shining behind the man’s spectacles.
And to think that this was my fault—the result of my own reckless neglect. I had grown so used to sitting back dozing in my shroud in the dentist’s chair, listening to the twittering of the birds outside, my eyes closed in the sweet half sleep of perfect security, that the old apprehensiveness and mental agony had practically all gone.
He didn’t hurt me, and I knew it.
I had grown—I know it sounds mad—almost to like him.
For a time I had kept up the appearance of being hurt every few minutes, just as a precaution. Then even that had ceased and I had dropped into vainglorious apathy.
It was this, of course, which had infuriated the dentist. He meant to reassert his power. He knew that nothing but gas could rouse me out of my lethargy and he meant to apply it—either gas or some other powerful pain stimulant.
So, as soon as he said “gas,” my senses were alert in a moment.
“When are you going to do it?” I said in horror.
“Right now, if you like,” he answered.
His eyes were glittering with what the Germans call Blutlust. All dentists have it.
I could see that if I took my eye off him for a moment he might spring at me, gas in hand, and throttle me.
“No, not now, I can’t stay now,” I said, “I have an appointment, a whole lot of appointments, urgent ones, the most urgent I ever had.” I was unfastening my shroud as I spoke.
“Well, then, to-morrow,” said the dentist.
“No,” I said, “to-morrow is Saturday. And Saturday is a day when I simply can’t take gas. If I take gas, even the least bit of gas on a Saturday, I find it’s misunderstood—”
“Monday then.”
“Monday, I’m afraid, won’t do. It’s a bad day for me—worse than I can explain.”
“Tuesday?” said the dentist.
“Not Tuesday,” I answered. “Tuesday is the worst day of all. On Tuesday my church society meets, and I must go to it.”
I hadn’t been near it, in reality, for three years, but suddenly I felt a longing to attend it.
“On Wednesday,” I went on, speaking hurriedly and wildly, “I have another appointment, a swimming club, and on Thursday two appointments, a choral society and a funeral. On Friday I have another funeral. Saturday is market day. Sunday is washing day. Monday is drying day—”
“Hold on,” said the dentist, speaking very firmly. “You come to-morrow morning: I’ll write the engagement for ten o’clock.”
I think it must have been hypnotism.
Before I knew it, I had said “Yes.”
I went out.
On the street I met a man I knew.
“Have you ever taken gas from a dentist?” I asked.
“Oh, yes,” he said; “it’s nothing.”
Soon after I met another man.
“Have you ever taken gas?” I asked.
“Oh, certainly,” he answered, “it’s nothing, nothing at all.”
Altogether I asked about fifty people that day about gas, and they all said that it was absolutely nothing. When I said that I was to take it to-morrow, they showed no concern whatever. I looked in their faces for traces of anxiety. There weren’t any. They all said that it wouldn’t hurt me, that it was nothing.
So then I was glad because I knew that gas was nothing.
It began to seem hardly worth while to keep the appointment. Why go all the way downtown for such a mere nothing?
But I did go.
I kept the appointment.
What followed was such an absolute nothing that I shouldn’t bother to relate it except for the sake of my friends.
The dentist was there with two assistants. All three had white coats on, as rigid as naval uniforms.
I forget whether they carried revolvers.
Nothing could exceed their quiet courage. Let me pay them that tribute.
I was laid out in my shroud in a long chair and tied down to it (I think I was tied down; perhaps I was fastened with nails). This part of it was a mere nothing. It simply felt like being tied down by three strong men armed with pinchers.
After that a gas tank and a pump were placed beside me and a set of rubber tubes fastened tight over my mouth and nose. Even those who have never taken gas can realize how ridiculously simple this is.
Then they began pumping in gas. The sensation of this part of it I cannot, unfortunately, recall. It happened that just as they began to administer the gas, I fell asleep. I don’t quite know why. Perhaps I was overtired. Perhaps it was the simple home charm of the surroundings, the soft drowsy hum of the gas pump, the twittering of the dentists in the trees—did I say the trees? No; of course they weren’t in the trees—imagine dentists in the trees—ha! ha! Here, take off this gaspipe from my face till I laugh—really I just want to laugh—only to laugh—
Well,—that’s what it felt like.
Meanwhile they were operating.
Of course I didn’t feel it. All I felt was that someone dealt me a powerful blow in the face with a sledgehammer. After that somebody took a pickax and cracked in my jaw with it. That was all.
It was a mere nothing. I felt at the time that a man who objects to a few taps on the face with a pickax is overcritical.
I didn’t happen to wake up till they had practically finished. So I really missed the whole thing.
The assistants had gone, and the dentist was mixing up cement and humming airs from light opera just like old times. It made the world seem a bright place.
I went home with no teeth. I only meant them to remove one, but I realized that they had taken them all out. Still it didn’t matter.
Not long after I received my bill. I was astounded at the nerve of it! For administering gas, debtor, so much; for removing teeth, debtor, so much;—and so on.
In return I sent in my bill:
Dr. William Jaws
DEBTOR
To mental agony ….. $50.00
To gross lies in regard to the nothingness of gas ….. $100.00
To putting me under gas ….. $50.00
To having fun with me under gas ….. $100.00
To Brilliant Ideas, occurred to me under gas and lost ….. $100.00
Grand Total — $400.00
My bill has been contested and is in the hands of a solicitor. The matter will prove, I understand, a test case and will go to the final courts. If the judges have toothache during the trial, I shall win.
