Laughing Gas Read online

  He accepted the overture in the spirit in which it was intended.

  'You never spoke a truer word,' he replied agreeably. 'That's about who I am, if you come right down to it. Joey Cooley, the Idol of American Motherhood. Who are you?'

  'Havershot's my name.' 'English, aren't you?' 'That's right.' 'Been in Hollywood long?' 'About a week.' 'Where are you staying?'

  'I've a bungalow at the Garden of the Hesperides.'

  'Do you like Hollywood?'

  'Oh, rather. Topping spot.'

  'You ought to see Chillicothe, Ohio.'

  'Why?'

  'That's where I come from. And that's where I'd like to be now. Yessir, right back there in little old Chillicothe.' 'You're homesick, what?' 'You betcher.'

  'Still, I suppose you have a pretty good time here?' His face clouded. Once more, it appeared, I had said the wrong thing. 'Who, me? I do not.' 'Why not?'

  'I'll tell you why not. Because I'm practically a member of a chain gang. I couldn't have it much tougher if this was Devil's Island or the Foreign Legion or sump'n. Do you know what?'

  'What?'

  'Do you know what old Brinkmeyer did when the contract was being drawn up?' 'No, what?'

  'Slipped in a clause that I had to live at his house, so that I could be under his personal eye.'

  'Who is this Brinkmeyer?'

  'The boss of the corporation I work for.'

  'And you don't like his personal eye?'

  'I don't mind him. He's a pretty good sort of old stiff. It's his sister Beulah. She was the one who put him up to it. She's the heavy in the sequence. As tough as they come. Ever hear of Simon Legree?'

  'Yes.'

  'Beulah Brinkmeyer. Know what a serf is?' 'What you swim in, you mean.'

  'No, I don't mean what you swim in. I mean what's downtrodden and oppressed and gets the dirty end of die stick all the time. That's me. Gosh, what a life! Shall I tell you something?'

  'Do.’

  'I'm not allowed to play games, because I might get hurt. I'm not allowed to keep a dog, because it might bite me. I'm not allowed in the swimming-pool, because I might get drowned. And, listen, get this one. No candy, because I might put on weight.'

  'You don't mean that?'

  'I do mean that. It's in my contract. "The party of the second part, hereinafter to be called the artist, shall abstain from all ice-creams, chocolate-creams, nut sundaes, fudge, and all-day suckers, hereinafter to be called candy, this to be understood to comprise doughnuts, marshmallows, pies in their season, all starchy foods, and twice of chicken." Can you imagine my lawyer letting them slip that over'

  I must say I was a bit appalled. We Havershots have always been good trenchermen, and it never fails to give me a grey feeling when I hear of somebody being on a diet. I know how I should have felt at his age if some strong hand had kept me from the sock-shop.

  'I wonder you don't chuck it.'

  ‘I can't.’

  'You love your Art too much?' 'No, I don't.'

  'You like bringing sunshine into drab lives in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati?'

  ‘I don't care if Pittsburgh chokes. And that goes for Cincinnati, too.'

  'Then perhaps you feel that all the money and fame make up for these what you might call hideous privations?'

  He snorted. He seemed to have as low an opinion of money and fame as April June.

  'What's the good of money and fame? I can't eat them, can I? There's nothing I'd like better than to tie a can to the whole outfit and go back to where hearts are pure and men are men in Chillicothe, Ohio. I'd like to be home with mother right now. You should taste her fried chicken, southern style. And she'd be tickled pink to have me, too. But I can't get away. I've a five years contract, and you can bet they're going to hold me to it.'

  'I see.'

  'Oh, yes, I'm Uncle Tom, all right. But listen, shall I tell you something? I'm biding my time. I'm waiting. Some day I'll grow up. And when I do, oh, baby!'

  'Oh what?'

  'I said "Oh, baby!" I'm going to poke Beulah Brinkmeyer right in the snoot.'

  'What! Would you strike a woman?'

  'You betcher I'd strike a woman. Yessir, she'll get hers. And there's about six directors I'm going to poke in the snoot, and a whole raft of supervisors and production experts. And that press agent of mine. I'm going to poke him in the snoot, all right. Yessir! Matter of fact,' he said, summing up, 'you'd have a tough time finding somebody I'm not going to poke in the snoot, once I'm big enough. I've got all their names in a little notebook.'

  He relapsed into a moody silence, and I didn't quite know what to say. No words of mine, I felt, could cheer this stricken child. The iron had plainly entered a dashed

  sight too deep into his soul for a mere 'Buck up, old bird!' to do any good.

  However, as it turned out, I would have had no time to deliver anything in the nature of a pep talk, for at this moment the door opened and in poured a susurration of blighters, some male, some female, some with cameras, some without, and the air became so thick with interviewing and picture-taking that it would have been impossible to get a word in. I just sat reading my National Geographic Magazine. And presently a white-robed attendant appeared and announced that B. K. Burwash was straining at the forceps, and the gang passed through into his room, interviewing to the last.

  And not long after that another white-robed attendant came and said that I. J. Zizzbaum would be glad if I would look in, so I commended my soul to God, and followed her into the operating theatre.

  Chapter 6

  I. J. ZIZZBAUM proved to be rather a gloomy cove. He looked like a dentist with a secret sorrow. In reply to my 'Good afternoon,' he merely motioned me to the chair with a sombre wave of the hand. One of those strong, silent dentists.

  I, on the other hand, was at my chattiest. I am always that way when closeted with a molar-mangier. I dare say it's the same with you. I suppose one's idea is that if one can only keep the conversation going, the blighter may get so interested that he will shelve the dirty work altogether in favour of a cosy talk. I started in right away.

  'Hullo, hullo, hullo. Here I am. Good afternoon, good afternoon. What a lovely day, what? Shall I sit here? Right ho. Shall I lean my head back? Right ho. Shall I open my mouth? Right ho.'

  'Wider, please,' said I. J. Zizzbaum sadly.

  'Right ho. Everything set for the administration of the old laughing gas? Good. You know,' I said, sitting up, 'it's years since I had gas. I can't have been more than twelve. I know I was quite a kid, because it happened when I was at a private school, and of course one leaves one's private school at a very tender age. And, talking of kids, who do you think I met in the waiting-room? None other than little Joey Cooley. And it's an odd coincidence, but he's having gas, too. Shows what a small world it is, what?'

  I broke off, abashed. It did not need the quick wince of pain on I. J. Zizzbaum's mobile face to tell me that I had made a bloomer and said the tactless thing. I could have kicked myself.

  Because it had suddenly flashed upon me what the trouble was and why he was not this afternoon the sunny I. J. Zizzbaum whose merry laugh and gay quips made him, no doubt, the life and soul of the annual dentists' convention. He was brooding on the fact that the big prize in the dentistry world, the extraction of little Joey Cooley's bicuspid, had gone to his trade rival, B. K, Burwash.

  No doubt he had been listening in on all that interviewing and camera-clicking, and the shrill cries of the human interest writers as they went about their business must have made very bitter hearing - rubbing it in, I mean to say, that old Pop Burwash was going to get his name on the front page of all the public news-sheets and become more or less the World's Sweetheart, while all he, Zizzbaum, could expect was my modest fee.

  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 th
e 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 quickly 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 the penalties of Fame, B. K. Burwash,' 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.