Elbow-Room: A Novel Without a Plot

by Charles Heber Clark

  CHAPTER XXI.

  _CERTAIN DENTAL EXPERIENCES.--AN UNFORTUNATE OFFICIAL_.

  Mr. Potts has suffered a good deal from the toothache, and one dayhe went around to the office of Dr. Slugg, the dentist, to have theoffending tooth pulled. The doctor has a very large practice; and inorder to economize his strength, he invented a machine for pullingteeth. He constructed a series of cranks and levers fixed to a movablestand and operating a pair of forceps by means of a leather belt,which was connected with the shafting of a machine-shop in the streetback of the house. The doctor experimented with it several times onnails firmly inserted in a board, and it worked splendidly. The firstpatient he tried it on was Mr. Potts. When the forceps had beenclasped upon Potts' tooth, Dr. Slugg geared the machine and opened thevalve. It was never known with any degree of exactness whether thedoctor pulled the valve too far open or whether the engine was workingat that moment under extraordinary pressure. But in the twinkling ofan eye Mr. Potts was twisted out of the chair and the movable standbegan to execute the most surprising manoeuvres around the room.It would jerk Mr. Potts high into the air and souse him down inan appalling manner, with one leg among Slugg's gouges and otherinstruments of torture, and with the other in the spittoon. Then itwould rear him up against the chandelier three or four times, andshy across and drive Potts' head through the oil portrait of Slugg'sfather over the mantel-piece. After bumping him against Slugg'sancestor it would swirl Potts around among the crockery on thewash-stand and dance him up and down in an exciting manner over thestove, until finally the molar "gave," and as Potts landed with hisfoot through the pier-glass and his elbow on a pink poodle worked in agreen rug, the machine dashed violently against Dr. Slugg and triedto seize his leg with the forceps. When they carried Potts home, hediscovered that Slugg had pulled the wrong tooth; and Dr. Slugg neversent to collect his bill. He canceled his contract with the man whoowned the planing-mill, and began to pull teeth in the old way, byhand. I have an impression that Slugg's patent can be bought at asacrifice.

  DR. SLUGG'S INVENTION]

  Mr. Potts, a day or two later, resolved to take the aching tooth outhimself. He had heard that a tooth could be removed suddenly andwithout much pain by tying a string around it, fixing the string toa bullet and firing the bullet from a gun. So he got some string andfastened it to the tooth and to a ball, rammed the latter into hisgun, and aimed the gun out of the window. Then he began to feelnervous about it, and he cocked and uncocked the gun about twentytimes, as his mind changed in regard to the operation. The last timethe gun was cocked he resolved _not_ to take the tooth out in thatway, and he began to let the hammer down preparatory to cutting thestring. 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. AfterMrs. Potts had picked him up and given him water with which to washout his mouth he went down to the front window. While he was sittingthere thinking that maybe it was all for the best, he saw some mencoming 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'soffice and see what the tragedy was. When he got there, Mr. Dingushad revived somewhat, and he told his story to the coroner. He wastrimming a tree in Butterwick's garden, when he suddenly heard theexplosion of a gun, and the next minute a bullet struck him in thethigh and he fell to the ground. He said he couldn't imagine who didit. Then the doctor examined the wound and found a string hanging fromit, and a large bullet suspended upon the string. When he pulled thestring it would not move any, and he said it must be tied tosome other missile still in the flesh. He said it was the mostextraordinary case on record. The medical books reported nothing ofthe kind.

  Then the doctor gave Mr. Dingus chloroform and proceeded to cut intohim with a knife to find the other end of the string, and while he wasat work Mr. Potts began to feel sick at his stomach and to experiencea desire to go home. At last the doctor cut deep enough; and givingthe string a jerk, out came a molar tooth that looked as if itmight have been aching. Then the doctor said the case was 'moreextraordinary than he had thought it was. He said that tooth couldn'thave been fired from a gun, because it would have been broken topieces; it couldn't have been swallowed by Dingus and then brokenthrough and buried itself in his thigh, for then how could the stringand 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 toconceive that the tooth and the ball were really meteoric stones thathave assumed these remarkable shapes and been shot down upon the earthwith such force as to penetrate Mr. Dingus' leg, and this is so veryimprobable that we can hardly accept it unless it is impossible tofind any other. Hallo! What's the matter with you, Potts? Your mouthand shirt 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 assassination, and Dingussaid 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. Dinguswas there; and the gun went off accidentally, any way."

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

  And Potts went away with a dim impression that he had injured Maginnrather 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 Iever--Well, exceptin' Jim Busby's tumblin' off the market-house lastmonth, there hasn't been a decent accident in this place since lastsummer. How'm I goin' to live, I want to know? In other countriespeople keep things movin'. There are murders and coal-oil explosionsand roofs fallin' in--'most always somethin' lively to afford acoroner a chance. But here! Why, I don't get 'nough fees in a year tokeep a poll-parrot in water-crackers. I don't--now, that's the honesttruth."

  "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 manup in the river just beyond the county line. I ought to have had thefirst shy at the body by rights, for I know well enough he fell infrom this county and then skeeted up with the tide. But no; Doolanwould hold the inquest; and do you believe that man actually wouldn'tfloat the remains down the river so's I could sit on 'em after he'dgot through? Actually took 'em out and buried 'em, although I offeredto go halves with him on my fees if he would pass the body down thisway. That's a positive fact. He refused. Now, what do you think of aman 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 mummiesthat he dug out of some sepulchre in that country. They look exacklylike dried beef. Now, my view is that I ought to sit on those things.They're human beings; nobody 'round here knows what they died of. Thelaw has a right to know. Stanton hasn't got a doctor's certificateabout 'em, and I'm sworn to look after all dead people that can'taccount for bein' dead, or that are suspicioned of dyin' by foul play.I could have made fifty dollars out
of those deceased Peruvians, andI ought to've done it. But no! Just as I was about to begin, thesupervisors, they shut down on it; they said the county didn't carenothin' about people that had been dead for six hundred years, andthey wouldn't pay me a cent. Just as if _six thousand_ years wasanything in the eye of the law, when maybe a man's been stabbed, orsomething, and when I'm under oath to tend to him! But it's just myluck. Everything appears to be agin me, 'specially if there's money init."

  "You do seem rather unfortunate."

  "Now, there's some countries where they frequently have earthquakeswhich rattle down the houses and mash people, and volcanoes whichburst out and set hundreds of 'em afire, and hurricanes which blow 'eminto Hereafter. A coroner can have some comfort in such a place asthat. He can live honest and respectable. Just think of settin' onfour or five hundred bodies killed with an earthquake! It makes mymouth water. But nothin' of that sort ever happens in this jackasskind of a land. Things go along just 'sif they were asleep. We've gotsix saw-mills 'round this town, but nobody ever gets tangled in themachinery and sawed in half. We've got a gunpowder-factory out beyondthe turnpike, but will that ever go up? It wouldn't if you was to tossa red-hot stove in among the powder--leastways, not while I'm coroner.There's a river down there, but nobody ever drowns in it where I canhave a hitch at him; and if there's a freshet, everybody at once getsout of reach. If there's a fire, all the inmates get away safe, and nofireman ever falls off a ladder or stands where a wall might flattenhim out. No, sir; I don't have a fair show. There was that riot outat the foundry. In any other place three or four men would have beenkilled, and there'd a been fatness for the coroner; but of course,bein' in my county, nothin' occurred exceptin' Sam Dixon got kickedin the ribs and had part of his ear bitten off. A man can't make anhonest livin' under sech circumstances as them; he can't, really."

  "It does appear difficult."

  "I did think maybe I might get the supervisors to let me go out tothe cemetery and set on the folks that are buried there, so's I couldoverhaul '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 suchqueer ideas of economy that they wouldn't listen to it; said the towncouldn'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 ordown by the river, so's some of the children'd now and then getrun over or fall in; but the parents were 'posed to it for selfishreasons, and so I got shoved out of that chance. Yes, sir, it's roughon me; and I tell you that if there are not more sudden deaths in thiscounty the law's got to give me a salary, or I'm goin' to perish bystarvation. Not that I'd mind that much for myself, but it cuts me upto think that as soon as I stepped out the next coroner'd begin rightoff to earn a livin' out of me."

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

  The country around the town of Millburg is of limestone formation. Thetown stands, as has already been mentioned, on a high hill, at thefoot of which there is a wonderful spring, and the belief has alwaysbeen that the hill is full of great caves and fissures, through whichthe water makes its way to feed the spring. A year or two ago theyorganized a cemetery company at Millburg, and they located thegraveyard upon the hill a short distance back of the town. Afterthey had deposited several bodies in the ground, one day somebodydiscovered a coffin floating in the river. It was hauled out, and itturned out to be the remains of Mr. Piggott, who was buried in thecemetery the day before. The coroner held an inquest, and theyreinterred the corpse.

  On the following morning, however, Mr. Piggott was discovered bumpingup against the wharf at the gas-works in the river. People began tobe scared, and there was some talk to the effect that he had beenmurdered and couldn't rest quietly in his grave. But the coroner wasnot scared. He empaneled a jury, held another inquest, collected hisfees and buried the body. Two days afterward some boys, while inswimming, found a burial-casket floating under the bushes down by thesaw-mill. They called for help, and upon examining the interior of thecasket they discovered the irrepressible Mr. Piggott again. This wastoo much. Even the ministers began to believe in ghosts, and hardlya man in town dared to go out of the house that night alone. But thecoroner controlled his emotions sufficiently to sit on the body, makethe 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 minuteshe saw that it was a coffin. It floated out, down the creek into theriver, and then Peter ran to tell the coroner. That official had ajury waiting, and he proceeded to the coffin. It was old Mr. Piggott,as usual; and they went through the customary routine with him, andwere about to bury him, when his family came forward and said theywould prefer to inter him in another place, being convinced now theremust be a subterranean channel leading from the cemetery to thespring. The coroner couldn't object; but after the Piggotts were gonehe said to the jury that people who would take the bread out of themouth of a poor man in that way would be certain to come to wantthemselves some day. He said he could easily have paid off themortgage on his house and let his little girl take lessons on themelodeon besides, if they'd just allowed Piggott to wobble around theway he wanted to.

  There was no more trouble up at the cemetery after that until theyburied old Joe Middles, who used to have the fish-house over the riverat Deacon's. They entombed the old man on Thursday night. On Fridaymorning one of the Keysers was walking down on the river-bank, and hesaw a man who looked very much like Mr. Middles sitting up in a canoeout in the stream fishing. He watched the man as he caught two orthree fish, and was just about to conclude that it was some unknownbrother of Mr. Middles, when the fisherman looked up and said,

  "Hello, Harry."

  JOE MIDDLES]

  "Who are you?" asked Keyser.

  "Who am I? Why, Joe Middles, of course. Who'd you think I was?"remarked the fisherman.

  "You ain't Joe Middles, for he's dead. I went to his funeralyesterday."

  "Funeral!" exclaimed the fisherman as he stepped ashore. "Well, now,by George! maybe that explains the thing. I've been bothering myselfthe worst kind to understand something. You know that I remember beingat home in bed, and then I went to sleep somehow; and when I woke up,it was dark as pitch. I gave a kick to stretch myself, and knocked thelid off of this thing here--a canoe I thought it was; and then I setup and found myself out here in the river. I took the lid to splitinto paddles, and I saw on it a plate with the words 'Joseph Middles,aged sixty-four;' and I couldn't imagine how in thunder that ever goton that lid. Howsomdever, I pulled over to the shanty and got somelines and bait and floated out again, thinking while I was here Imight as well get a mess of fish before I got home. And so it's acoffin, after all, and they buried me yesterday. Well, that beats thevery old Harry, now, don't it? I'm going to row right over to thehouse. How it'll skeer the old woman to see me coming in safe andsound!"

  Then the resurrected Mr. Middles paddled off. The cemetery companyfailed the following month, from inability to sell the lots.