Laughing Gas (7 page)

It was enough to depress the most effervescent dentist, and my heart bled for the poor bloke. I hunted in my mind for some soothing speech that would bring the roses back to his cheeks, but all I could think of was a statement to the effect that recent discoveries in the Congo basin had thrown a new light on something or other. I had this on the authority of the
National Geographic Magazine.

It didn't seem to cheer him up to any marked extent. Not interested in the Congo basin, probably. Many people aren't. He simply sighed rather heavily, levered my jaws a bit farther apart, peered into the abyss, sighed again as if he didn't think highly of the contents, and motioned to his A.D.C. to cluster round with the gas-bag.

And presently, after a brief interlude during which I felt as if I was being slowly smothered where I sat, I was off.

I don't know if you are familiar with this taking-gas business. If you are, you will recall that it has certain drawbacks apart from the sensation of being cut off in your prime by stoppage of the windpipes. It is apt to give you unpleasant dreams and visions. The last time I had had it, on the occasion which I had mentioned in my introductory remarks, I remember that I had thought somebody was shoving me down into the sea, and I had a distinct illusion of being pried asunder by sharks.

This time, the proceedings were still rummy, but not quite so bad as that. The sharks were not on the bill. The stellar role was played by little Joey Cooley.

It seemed to me that he and I were in a room rather like the waiting-room, only larger, and as in the real waiting-room, there were two doors, one on each side.

The first was labelled:

I. J. ZIZZBAUM

The other:

B. K. BURWASH

And the Cooley kid and I were jostling one another, trying to get through the Zizzbaum door.

Well, any chump would have seen that that wasn't right. I tried to reason with the misguided little blighter. I kept saying: 'Stop shoving, old sport; you're trying to get into the wrong room,' but it wasn't any use - he simply shoved the more. And presently he shoved me into an arm-chair and told me to sit there and read the
National Geographic Magazine,
and then he opened the door and went through.

After that, things got blurred for a while. When they clarified somewhat, I was still sitting in a chair, but it was a dentist's chair, and I realized that I had come out from under the influence.

The first thing I saw was I. J. Zizzbaum in his white coat. He was regarding me with a kindly smile.

'Well, my little man,' he said, in a fatherly sort of way. 'Feeling all right?'

And I was just about to ask him what the dickens he meant by calling me his little man - for the Havershots, though matey, have their sense of dignity, when I suddenly perceived that we were not alone. The room was absolutely crammed.

Ann Bannister was there, standing on the other side of me, but I didn't object to that. If she had somehow got wind of this operation of mine and something of the old love and affection still lingered in her bosom, causing her to want to be with me in my hour of trial, well, that was all right. Dashed decent of her, I felt. But I strongly resented the presence of all these other birds. I mean to say, perfect strangers have no right to come flocking round a chap when he's having a tooth out. Then, if ever, he is surely entitled to a spot of privacy.

There was a whole mob of them, and I had a sort of vague feeling I'd seen them before somewhere. Some were male, some female. Some had cameras, some hadn't. I sat up, feeling a bit huffy. I was surprised at I. J. Zizzbaum allowing them on the premises, and I was just going to tell him so - and I didn't intend to mince my words -when I made a rather odd discovery - to wit, that the chap in the white coat wasn't I. J. Zizzbaum. Somebody different altogether.

And I was about to enquire into this, when I discovered something else. Something that made me draw in my breath q
uickly with a startled 'What ho!
'

When I had entered the waiting-room, I must mention, I had been clad in a quiet grey suit with powder-blue socks matching the neat tie and melting, as it were, into the tasteful suede shoes. And now, by Jove, I'm blowed if I wasn't wearing knickerbockers and stockings. And then suddenly I caught sight of my face in the mirror and saw that it was of singular beauty, topped off with golden ringlets. And the eyes staring into mine were large and expressive and had long lashes.

'Hell!'
I cried.

Well, I mean to say, who wouldn't have? I saw right away what had happened. Someone, as the poet says, had blundered. Joey Cooley and I must have gone under gas at exactly the same moment and, owing presumably to some bad staffwork during the period when we were simultaneously sauntering about in the fourth dimension, or

whatever they call it, there had been an unforeseen switch. The impetuous young cuckoo had gone and barged into my body, and I, having nowhere else to go, had toddled off and got into his.

His fault, of course, the silly ass. I had told him to stop shoving.

Chapter 7

I
sat
staring at myself in the mirror, and was still in full goggle when the bird in the white coat who had called me his little man - B. K. Burwash, I took him to be - stepped forward.

'You'll want this, eh?' he said, still speaking in that fatherly manner, and I saw that he was holding out a little cardboard box.

I continued to goggle. I hadn't any time for cardboard boxes. I was still trying to adjust myself to this new twist in the scenario.

A bit breath-taking, the whole affair, you will agree. Of course, I had read stories where much the same sort of thing had happened, but I had never supposed that a chap had got to budget for such an eventuality as a possible feature of the programme in real life. I know they say you ought to be prepared for anything, but, I mean, dash it!

Besides, it all seemed so sudden. In the stories there had always been a sinister scientist who had messed about with test-tubes, or an Egyptian sorcerer who had cast spells, and the thing had taken weeks, if not months. If quick service was desired, you had to have a magic ring or something. In either case, you didn't get results casually like this - out of a blue sky, as it were.

'The tooth,' explained B. K. Burwash. 'You'll want to keep it.'

I trousered the box absently, a proceeding which brought a howl of protest from the mob. The simple action seemed to get them all worked up.

There was a babble of voices.

'Hey!'

'Don't put that away.'

'We want to get a shot of you looking at it,'

'Sort of musing over it.'

'Hold it up and kind of smile at it.'

'Like as if you were saying to yourself: "Well, well
!"'

'Have you a statement for the Press?'

'What do you think of the political situation?'

'Has the President your confidence?'

'What is the future of the screen?'

'Give us a message for the people of America. Something snappy with a heart-throb in it.'

'Yay. And how about your favourite breakfast food?'

I had always known Ann Bannister as a girl of character and decision, and I must say my heart warmed to her at this juncture. She took the situation in hand right away and startled hustling them out as if she had been a bouncer in a waterfront pub who had just taken office and was resolved to make good.

'Give the poor child a chance, can't you?' she cried. 'What's the idea of worrying him at a time like this? How would you like it?'

The fellow who had asked for a message to the people of America said that
it
was as much as his job was worth to go back to the office without one.

Ann remained firm.

'I'll give you all the messages you want,' she said. 'I'll give you anything you like, only get out of here.'

And she went on hustling them out, and presently, by sheer personal magnetism, had cleared the room, and B. K. Burwash and I were alone.

'Quite a lot of excitement,' said B. K. Burwash. '
Ah, well, the penalties of Fame
'

He smiled as he spoke - the jolly, beaming smile of a dentist who, in addition to pouching a nice fee, knows that he has just had about a thousand dollars' worth of free advertisement.

I was not able to share his merry mood. The dazed feeling passed off, leaving me all of a twitter. I could see now that I had gone and got myself into a very nasty jam.

I mean to say, life's difficult enough as it is. You don't want to aggravate the general complexity of things by getting changed into a kid with knickerbockers and golden curls. A nice thing it was going to be if this state of affairs proved to be permanent. Bim, obviously, would go any chance I might have had of leading April June to the altar. A girl in her position wasn't going to walk up the aisle with a kid in knickerbockers.

What, too, would the fellows at the Drones say if I were to saunter in with golden curls all over me? They wouldn't have it at any price. The Drones is what I would call a pretty broad-minded club, but they simply wouldn't have it. 'You can't do that there 'ere' about summed up what the attitude of the committee would be.

Little wonder, then, that I was in no frame of mind to frisk and frolic with this debonair dentist.

'Never mind about t
he penalties of Fame, B. K. Bur
wash,' I said urgently. 'We can discuss all that later. What I wish to do now is issue a statement. A frightful thing has happened, and unless prompt steps are taken through the proper channels, there is going to be a nasty stink kicked up. I may say I happen to know the ringleaders.'

'Just lean back and relax.'

'I won't lean back and relax. I want to issue a statement.'

And I was about to do so, when the door opened and a woman came in. She seemed a bit shirty. She was pshawing and tchahing as she entered.

'All this fuss!' she said. 'I've no patience with them. As if the child wasn't conceited enough already.'

She was a tall, rangy light-heavyweight, severe of aspect. She looked as if she might be an important official on the staff of some well-known female convict establishment. That this was not so was proved by the fact that B. K. Burwash addressed her as Miss Brinkmeyer, and I divined that this must be the woman the kid Cooley had said he disliked.

'I think the little man is feeling all right now, Miss Brinkmeyer,' said B. K. Burwash.

She greeted these kindly words with a snorting sniff indicative of disgust and contempt. I could see why the kid Cooley didn't like this woman. I didn't like her myself. She lacked that indefinable something which we know as charm.

'Of course he's feeling all right. Why wouldn't he be?'

B. K. Burwash said that he always felt a certain anxiety after giving gas. This seemed to stir her up further.

'Pah! Stuff and nonsense! Gas, indeed. When I was a child nobody ever gave me gas. When I was a child, my father used to tie a string to me and fasten it to the barn door and slam it. And it didn't get into the papers, either. All this fuss about a tiny little tooth, which wouldn't ever have started aching if he hadn't been eating candy on the sly, though knowing perfectly well what Clause B.
(2)
in his contract says. I intend to get to the bottom of this candy business. Somebody is bootlegging it to him, and I mean to find out who it is. He's as artful as a barrel-load of monkeys —'

I was conscious of a growing annoyance. I had fallen into a reverie and was once more endeavouring to grapple with the problems confronting me, and her voice interrupted my meditations. It was a harsh, rasping voice, in its timbre not unlike a sawmill.

I shushed her down with a gesture.

'Don't talk so much,' I said curtly.

'What did you say?'

'I said "Don't talk so much". How can I think with all this gabble going on? For heaven's sake, woman, put a sock in it and let me concentrate.'

This got a fair snicker out of B. K. Burwash, though I hadn't intended to strike the humorous note. It caused Miss
Brinkmeyer to pinken and
breathe heavily.

'I'd like to put you across my knee and give you a good Spanking.'

I raised a hand.

'No horse-play, if y
ou please,' I said distantly.

And then something occurred to me, and the whole situation seemed to brighten. I had just remembered what the kid Cooley had said when sketching out his plans for what he was going to do when he was big enough.

Well, goodness knew he was big enough for anything now. My branch of the family has always run to beef a bit, myself not least. When I boxed for Cambridge, I weighed fourteen stone in the nude.

I gave a hearty chuckle, the first I had felt like emitting for some considerable time.

'Woman,' I said, 'you would do better, instead of threatening violence to others, to look out for yourself. You don't know it, but you are in a very sticky spot. The avenger is on your track. When the blow will fall, we cannot say, but some day, in some place, you are going to get a poke in the snoot. This is official.'