From Pillar to Post: Leaves from a Lecturer's Note-Book. Bangs John Kendrick

this moment a charming woman seated on the opposite side of the car leaned over and said, "I do not wish to intrude, but I have seen how you were suffering, and I just overheard your remark. Now my son-in-law is a dentist, and we think he is a good one. He is coming to meet me at the station, and I think possibly he will be willing to help you."

      I thanked the lady, and expressed the hope that he would.

      On our arrival at the station the young man appeared as was expected, and my kindly chaperone presented the case.

      "He has been suffering dreadfully, James," she said, "and I told him you would pull his tooth out for him."

      "But, my dear mother," said the young man, "we are in a good deal of a hurry. We have an engagement for to-night. My office is closed, and we are not dressed for – "

      "Thanks just the same," said I. "I am sure you would help me if you could – maybe you will do the next best thing. I can't lecture unless I have this confounded thing out."

      "Lecture?" said he. "You are not John Kendrick – "

      "Yes – I am," said I.

      "Oh," said he, "that's different. You are our engagement. Come up to my office, and I'll fix you up in a jiffy."

      So we marched five long blocks up to his office, where I was soon stretched out, and the desired operation put through with neatness and despatch.

      "Well, doctor," said I as he held the offending molar up before me tightly gripped in his forceps, "you have given me the first moment of relief I have had all day. My debt in gratitude I shall never be able to repay, but the other I think I can handle. How much do I owe you?"

      "Nothing at all, Mr. Bangs," he replied. "Nothing at all."

      "Oh, that's nonsense, doctor," I retorted. "You are a professional man, and I am a stranger to you – you must charge something."

      "Oh, no, Mr. Bangs," said he, smilingly. "You are no stranger to me. I have been reading your books for the past twenty years, and it's a positive pleasure to pull your teeth."

      V

      A VAGRANT POET

      The inimitable and forever to be lamented Gilbert, in one of his delightful songs in Pinafore, bade us once to remember that —

      Things are seldom what they seem —

      Skim-milk masquerades as cream;

      Highlows pass as patent-leathers;

      Jackdaws strut in peacock's feathers.

      The good woman who sang this song – little Buttercup, they called her – was in a pessimistic mood at the moment; for had she not been so she would have reversed the sentiment, showing us with equal truth how sometimes cream masquerades as skim milk, and how underneath the wear and tear of time what outwardly appears to be a "high low" still possesses some of the glorious polish of the "patent leather." Everywhere I travel I find something of this latter truth; but never was it more clearly demonstrated than when on one of my Western jaunts I came unexpectedly upon an almost overwhelming revelation of a finely poetic nature under an apparently rough and unpromising exterior.

      It happened on a trip in Arizona back in 1906. My train after passing Yuma was held up for several hours. Ordinarily I should have found this distressing; but, as the event proved, it brought to me one of the most delightfully instructive experiences I have yet had in the pursuit of my platform labors. As the express stood waiting for another much belated train from the East to pass, the door of the ordinary day coach – in which I had chosen to while away the tedium of the morning, largely because it was fastened to the end of the train, whence I could secure a wonderful view of the surrounding country – was opened, and a man apparently in the last stages of poverty entered the car.

      He was an oldish man, past sixty, I should say, and a glance at him caused my mind instinctively to revert to certain descriptions I had heard of the sad condition of the downtrodden Westerner, concerning whose unhappy lot our friends the Populists used to tell us so much. He looked so very poor and so irremediably miserable that he excited my sympathy. Upon his back there lay loosely the time-rusted and threadbare remnant of what had once in the days of its pride and freshness been a frock coat, now buttonless, spotted, and fringing at the edges. His trousers matched. His neck was collarless, a faded blue polka-dotted handkerchief serving as both collar and tie. His hat suggested service in numerous wars, and on his feet, bound there for their greater security with ordinary twine, were the uppers and a perforated part of the soles of a one-time pair of congress gaiters. As for his face – well, it brought vividly to mind the lines of Spenser —