Elbow-Room Part 23

Then Whitaker said Neptune was a G.o.d he always liked, and perhaps Mix could fix the tails of Penn's coat somehow so that it would look as if the figure was riding on a dolphin; then the hat might be made to represent seaweed, and a fish-spear could be put in the statue's hand.

Mix, however, urged that a white marble hat of those dimensions, when cut into seaweed, would be more apt to look as if Neptune was coming home with a load of hay upon his head; and he said that although art had made gigantic strides during the past century, and evidently had a brilliant future before it, it had not yet discovered a method by which a swallow-tail coat with flaps to the pockets could be turned into anything that would look like a dolphin.

Then Mr. Whitaker wanted to know if Pan wasn't the G.o.d that had horns and split hoofs, with a s.h.a.ggy look to his legs; for if he was, he would be willing to have the statue made into Pan, if it could be done without too much expense.

And Mr. Mix said that while nothing would please him more than to produce such a figure of Pan, and while William Penn's square-toed shoes, probably, might be made into cloven hoofs without a very strenuous effort, still he hardly felt as if he could fix up those knee-breeches to resemble s.h.a.ggy legs; and as for trying to turn that hat into a pair of horns, Mr. Whitaker might as well talk of emptying the Atlantic Ocean through a stomach-pump.

Thereupon, Mr. Whitaker remarked that he had concluded, on the whole, that it would be better to split the patriarch up the middle and take the two halves to make a couple of little Cupids, which he could hang in his parlor with a string, so that they would appear to be sporting in air. Perhaps the flap of that hat might be sliced up into wings and glued on the shoulders of the Cupids.

But Mr. Mix said that while n.o.body would put himself out more to oblige a friend than he would, still he must say, if his honest opinion was asked, that to attempt to make a Cupid out of one leg and half the body of William Penn would be childish, because, if they used the half one way, there would be a very small Cupid with one very long leg; and if they used it the other way, he would have to cut Cupid's head out of the calf of William's leg, and there wasn't room enough, let alone the fact that the knee-joint would give the G.o.d of Love the appearance of having a broken back. And as for wings, if the man had been born who could chisel wings out of the flap of a hat, all he wanted was to meet that man, so that he could gaze on him and study him. Finally Whitaker suggested that Mix should make the statue into an angel and sell it for an ornament to a tombstone.

But Mix said that if he should insult the dead by putting up in the cemetery an angel with a stubby nose and a double-chin, that would let him out as a manufacturer of sepulchres.

And so Whitaker sold him the statue for ten dollars, and Mix sawed it up into slabs for marble-top tables. High art doesn't seem to flourish to any large extent in this place.

CHAPTER XXI.

_CERTAIN DENTAL EXPERIENCES.--AN UNFORTUNATE OFFICIAL_.

Mr. Potts has suffered a good deal from the toothache, and one day he went around to the office of Dr. Slugg, the dentist, to have the offending tooth pulled. The doctor has a very large practice; and in order to economize his strength, he invented a machine for pulling teeth. He constructed a series of cranks and levers fixed to a movable stand and operating a pair of forceps by means of a leather belt, which was connected with the shafting of a machine-shop in the street back of the house. The doctor experimented with it several times on nails firmly inserted in a board, and it worked splendidly. The first patient he tried it on was Mr. Potts. When the forceps had been clasped upon Potts' tooth, Dr. Slugg geared the machine and opened the valve. It was never known with any degree of exactness whether the doctor pulled the valve too far open or whether the engine was working at that moment under extraordinary pressure. But in the twinkling of an eye Mr. Potts was twisted out of the chair and the movable stand began to execute the most surprising manoeuvres around the room.

It would jerk Mr. Potts high into the air and souse him down in an appalling manner, with one leg among Slugg's gouges and other instruments of torture, and with the other in the spittoon. Then it would rear him up against the chandelier three or four times, and shy across and drive Potts' head through the oil portrait of Slugg's father over the mantel-piece. After b.u.mping him against Slugg's ancestor it would swirl Potts around among the crockery on the wash-stand and dance him up and down in an exciting manner over the stove, until finally the molar "gave," and as Potts landed with his foot through the pier-gla.s.s and his elbow on a pink poodle worked in a green rug, the machine dashed violently against Dr. Slugg and tried to seize his leg with the forceps. When they carried Potts home, he discovered that Slugg had pulled the wrong tooth; and Dr. Slugg never sent to collect his bill. He canceled his contract with the man who owned the planing-mill, and began to pull teeth in the old way, by hand. I have an impression that Slugg's patent can be bought at a sacrifice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DR. SLUGG'S INVENTION]

Mr. Potts, a day or two later, resolved to take the aching tooth out himself. He had heard that a tooth could be removed suddenly and without much pain by tying a string around it, fixing the string to a bullet and firing the bullet from a gun. So he got some string and fastened it to the tooth and to a ball, rammed the latter into his gun, and aimed the gun out of the window. Then he began to feel nervous about it, and he c.o.c.ked and unc.o.c.ked the gun about twenty times, as his mind changed in regard to the operation. The last time the gun was c.o.c.ked he resolved _not_ to take the tooth out in that way, and he began to let the hammer down preparatory to cutting the string. Just then the hammer slipped, and the next minute Mr. Potts'

tooth was flying through the air at the rate of fifty miles a minute, and he was rolling over on the floor howling and spitting blood. After Mrs. Potts had picked him up and given him water with which to wash out his mouth he went down to the front window. While he was sitting there thinking that maybe it was all for the best, he saw some men coming by carrying a body on a shutter. He asked what was the matter, and they told him that Bill Dingus had been murdered by somebody.

Mr. Potts thought he would put on his hat and go down to the coroner's office and see what the tragedy was. When he got there, Mr. Dingus had revived somewhat, and he told his story to the coroner. He was tr.i.m.m.i.n.g a tree in b.u.t.terwick's garden, when he suddenly heard the explosion of a gun, and the next minute a bullet struck him in the thigh and he fell to the ground. He said he couldn't imagine who did it. Then the doctor examined the wound and found a string hanging from it, and a large bullet suspended upon the string. When he pulled the string it would not move any, and he said it must be tied to some other missile still in the flesh. He said it was the most extraordinary case on record. The medical books reported nothing of the kind.

Then the doctor gave Mr. Dingus chloroform and proceeded to cut into him with a knife to find the other end of the string, and while he was at work Mr. Potts began to feel sick at his stomach and to experience a desire to go home. At last the doctor cut deep enough; and giving the string a jerk, out came a molar tooth that looked as if it might have been aching. Then the doctor said the case was 'more extraordinary than he had thought it was. He said that tooth couldn't have been fired from a gun, because it would have been broken to pieces; it couldn't have been swallowed by Dingus and then broken through and buried itself in his thigh, for then how could the string and ball be accounted for?

"The occurrence is totally unaccountable upon any reasonable theory,"

said the doctor, "and I do not know what to believe, unless we are to conceive that the tooth and the ball were really meteoric stones that have a.s.sumed these remarkable shapes and been shot down upon the earth with such force as to penetrate Mr. Dingus' leg, and this is so very improbable that we can hardly accept it unless it is impossible to find any other. Hallo! What's the matter with you, Potts? Your mouth and s.h.i.+rt are all stained with blood!"

"Oh, nothing," said Potts, forgetting himself. "I just lost a tooth, and--"

"You lost a--Who pulled it?" asked the doctor.

"Gentlemen," said Potts, "the fact is I shot it out with my gun."

Then they put Potts under bail for attempted a.s.sa.s.sination, and Dingus said that as soon as he got well he would bang Mr. Potts with a club.

When the crowd had gone, the coroner said to Potts,

"You're a mean sort of a man, now, ain't you?"

"Well, Mr. Maginn," replied Potts, "I really didn't know Mr. Dingus was there; and the gun went off accidentally, any way."

"Oh, it isn't that," said the coroner--"it isn't that. I don't mind your shooting him, but why in the thunder didn't you kill him while you were at it, and give me a chance? You want to see me starve, don't you? I wish you'd a buried the tooth in his lung and the ball in his liver, and then I'd a had my regular fees. But as it is, I have all the bother and get nothing. I'd starve to death if all men were like you."

And Potts went away with a dim impression that he had injured Maginn rather more than Mr. Dingus.

Coroner Maginn's condition, however, is one of chronic discontent.

Upon the occasion of a recent encounter with him I said to him,

"Business seems to be dull to-day, Mr. Maginn."

"Dull! Well, that's just no name for it. This is the deadest town I ever--Well, exceptin' Jim Busby's tumblin' off the market-house last month, there hasn't been a decent accident in this place since last summer. How'm I goin' to live, I want to know? In other countries people keep things movin'. There are murders and coal-oil explosions and roofs fallin' in--'most always somethin' lively to afford a coroner a chance. But here! Why, I don't get 'nough fees in a year to keep a poll-parrot in water-crackers. I don't--now, that's the honest truth."

"That does seem discouraging."

"And then the worst of it is a man's friends won't stand by him.

There's Doolan, the coroner in the next county. He found a drowned man up in the river just beyond the county line. I ought to have had the first shy at the body by rights, for I know well enough he fell in from this county and then skeeted up with the tide. But no; Doolan would hold the inquest; and do you believe that man actually wouldn't float the remains down the river so's I could sit on 'em after he'd got through? Actually took 'em out and buried 'em, although I offered to go halves with him on my fees if he would pa.s.s the body down this way. That's a positive fact. He refused. Now, what do you think of a man like that? He hasn't got enough soul in him to be worth preachin'

to. That's my opinion."

"It wasn't generous."

"No, sir. Why, there's Stanton come home from Peru with six mummies that he dug out of some sepulchre in that country. They look exackly like dried beef. Now, my view is that I ought to sit on those things.

They're human beings; n.o.body 'round here knows what they died of. The law has a right to know. Stanton hasn't got a doctor's certificate about 'em, and I'm sworn to look after all dead people that can't account for bein' dead, or that are suspicioned of dyin' by foul play.

I could have made fifty dollars out of those deceased Peruvians, and I ought to've done it. But no! Just as I was about to begin, the supervisors, they shut down on it; they said the county didn't care nothin' about people that had been dead for six hundred years, and they wouldn't pay me a cent. Just as if _six thousand_ years was anything in the eye of the law, when maybe a man's been stabbed, or something, and when I'm under oath to tend to him! But it's just my luck. Everything appears to be agin me, 'specially if there's money in it."

"You do seem rather unfortunate."

"Now, there's some countries where they frequently have earthquakes which rattle down the houses and mash people, and volcanoes which burst out and set hundreds of 'em afire, and hurricanes which blow 'em into Hereafter. A coroner can have some comfort in such a place as that. He can live honest and respectable. Just think of settin' on four or five hundred bodies killed with an earthquake! It makes my mouth water. But nothin' of that sort ever happens in this jacka.s.s kind of a land. Things go along just 'sif they were asleep. We've got six saw-mills 'round this town, but n.o.body ever gets tangled in the machinery and sawed in half. We've got a gunpowder-factory out beyond the turnpike, but will that ever go up? It wouldn't if you was to toss a red-hot stove in among the powder--leastways, not while I'm coroner.

There's a river down there, but n.o.body ever drowns in it where I can have a hitch at him; and if there's a freshet, everybody at once gets out of reach. If there's a fire, all the inmates get away safe, and no fireman ever falls off a ladder or stands where a wall might flatten him out. No, sir; I don't have a fair show. There was that riot out at the foundry. In any other place three or four men would have been killed, and there'd a been fatness for the coroner; but of course, bein' in my county, nothin' occurred exceptin' Sam Dixon got kicked in the ribs and had part of his ear bitten off. A man can't make an honest livin' under sech circ.u.mstances as them; he can't, really."

"It does appear difficult."

"I did think maybe I might get the supervisors to let me go out to the cemetery and set on the folks that are buried there, so's I could overhaul 'em and kinder revise the verdicts that've been rendered on 'em. I'd a done it for half price; but those fellows have got such queer ideas of economy that they wouldn't listen to it; said the town couldn't go to any fresh expense while it was buildin' water-works.

And I wanted to put the new school-house out yer by the railroad or down by the river, so's some of the children'd now and then get run over or fall in; but the parents were 'posed to it for selfish reasons, and so I got shoved out of that chance. Yes, sir, it's rough on me; and I tell you that if there are not more sudden deaths in this county the law's got to give me a salary, or I'm goin' to perish by starvation. Not that I'd mind that much for myself, but it cuts me up to think that as soon as I stepped out the next coroner'd begin right off to earn a livin' out of me."

Then I said "Good-morning" and left, while Mr. Maginn selected a fresh stick to whittle. Mr. Maginn, however, had one good chance recently to collect fees.

The country around the town of Millburg is of limestone formation. The town stands, as has already been mentioned, on a high hill, at the foot of which there is a wonderful spring, and the belief has always been that the hill is full of great caves and fissures, through which the water makes its way to feed the spring. A year or two ago they organized a cemetery company at Millburg, and they located the graveyard upon the hill a short distance back of the town. After they had deposited several bodies in the ground, one day somebody discovered a coffin floating in the river. It was hauled out, and it turned out to be the remains of Mr. Piggott, who was buried in the cemetery the day before. The coroner held an inquest, and they reinterred the corpse.

On the following morning, however, Mr. Piggott was discovered b.u.mping up against the wharf at the gas-works in the river. People began to be scared, and there was some talk to the effect that he had been murdered and couldn't rest quietly in his grave. But the coroner was not scared. He empaneled a jury, held another inquest, collected his fees and buried the body. Two days afterward some boys, while in swimming, found a burial-casket floating under the bushes down by the saw-mill. They called for help, and upon examining the interior of the casket they discovered the irrepressible Mr. Piggott again. This was too much. Even the ministers began to believe in ghosts, and hardly a man in town dared to go out of the house that night alone. But the coroner controlled his emotions sufficiently to sit on the body, make the usual charges and bury Mr. Piggott in a fresh place in his lot.

The next morning, while Peter Lamb was drinking out of the big spring, he saw something push slowly out of the mud at the bottom of the pool.

He turned as white as a sheet as he watched it; and in a few minutes he saw that it was a coffin. It floated out, down the creek into the river, and then Peter ran to tell the coroner. That official had a jury waiting, and he proceeded to the coffin. It was old Mr. Piggott, as usual; and they went through the customary routine with him, and were about to bury him, when his family came forward and said they would prefer to inter him in another place, being convinced now there must be a subterranean channel leading from the cemetery to the spring. The coroner couldn't object; but after the Piggotts were gone he said to the jury that people who would take the bread out of the mouth of a poor man in that way would be certain to come to want themselves some day. He said he could easily have paid off the mortgage on his house and let his little girl take lessons on the melodeon besides, if they'd just allowed Piggott to wobble around the way he wanted to.

There was no more trouble up at the cemetery after that until they buried old Joe Middles, who used to have the fish-house over the river at Deacon's. They entombed the old man on Thursday night. On Friday morning one of the Keysers was walking down on the river-bank, and he saw a man who looked very much like Mr. Middles sitting up in a canoe out in the stream fis.h.i.+ng. He watched the man as he caught two or three fish, and was just about to conclude that it was some unknown brother of Mr. Middles, when the fisherman looked up and said,

"h.e.l.lo, Harry."