SHORT STORY— CROOKED ROOTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 234, 2 October 1937, Page 13 (Supplement)

SHORT STORY— CROOKED ROOTS.

By THELMA VICTORIA LUCK,

IT was one of those days—you know— when the bathroom plumbing springs a leak before breakfast, the toast is burned, and your wife insists on talking about how she admires Clark Gable. On top of that I had to go to the dentist. Dr. Prudge was no ordinary dentist. He was a specialist. If you asked him to fill a tooth he'd flatly refuse. Nothing would satisfy him but to pull it up by the roots, or dig it out bit by bit. I think he enjoyed his work.

My appointment was for eleven o'clock. It was five minutes after when I reached Dr. Prudge's office. Several other people were in the waiting room, mournfully reading the jokes in the magazines which Dr. Prudge had provided to cheer us up. I sat down and read an advertisement about a man who was about to lose his job. He started eating "Whippy Quickies" for breakfast and grew so peppy and effervescent that his boss fired two other men and —- "Mr. Semple?" a voice said firmly. It was Dr. Prudge's office nurse. I rose reluctantly and followed her into a little room. I climbed into a high chair, and she put a bib on me. Presently, Dr. Prudge came in. "You're late," he said sternly. We expected you half an hour ago." He somehow managed to make me feel very guilty. I hastened to explain —apologetically, soothingly, hoping to put him in a better humour before he got into my mouth. "I have a barber shop near here. I share people and do massages and other things to their faces. My last customer is going to be married, and he wanted everything —he made me do his eyebrows three times. He wanted —" "All right! AH right!" Dr. Prudge thundered, "but it's nearly twelve o'clock and I've a whole roomful of patients waiting." "I'm sorry," I ventured. *T! was waiting for the nurse to let me in." I

would like to have added that T had more then once waited half an hour for him, but did not dare. "I could wait till you take on eome of the others," I offered helpfully, "I could come back later." "I'll be rushed all day," he barked, "I'll never get through. Next patient's having all his teeth out and they're rotten. They'll break off and come out in pieces. He'll likely faint two or three times before I finish. Open your mouth!" My knees were shaking. I tried to buck myself up by trying to be thankful I wasn't the next patient. I opened my mouth and pointed to a tooth on the lower left.

| Dr. Prudge looked in. "Hmph! Yours are getting rotten too." The nurse handed him an X-ray picture he had taken of my teeth on my last visit. Dr. Prudge located the one that was to come out, and made an angry noise in his throat. "Just as I thought! This is going to be a minor operation. The root is crooked. It has a big hook on the end of it. If it comes out whole it'll tear your jaw open, but it's, so brittle it will likely break off and I'll have to dig for it. It'll about half an hour and it's nearly noon now."

In His Power. His tone clearly indicated that none but a person of most reprehensible character would have a tooth with a hooked root. "I'm sorry," I said timidly. "If you like I'll just let it go. I don't mind. I'll—" He didn't seem to be listening. He jabbed a needle full of freezing fluid into my gum. Again and again he jabbed. "A person with a hooked root and a tooth like this walking in about twelve o'clock—do you feel that on the tip of your tongue yet?" 1 I could not even oblige him by feeling whatever I was supposed to feel at the tip of my tongue, so he stabbed me again. "Not only that,'' he continued, "but a tooth like this is likely to have an abscess in the pit. You'll probably have to come back for treatments." "Let me go," I pleaded wildly. "There's nobody home, and it's going to rain and the windows—" "Open your mouth," he commanded, brandishing a particularly wicked looking wrench or something. I ceased struggling. I was in his power. "Feel it on your tongue yet?" I didn't know by now what I felt, but I nodded, and kept my mouth open. Dr. Prudge attacked. Terrible rending, crackling sounds followed. Apparently half the numb side of my jaw was being wrenched asunder. Ten minutes later I was on my way home. I was still slightly dazed, but as my senses cleared I began to see red. I had been grossly and wrongfully accused of many things. To begin with 'it was now only ten minutes to twelve —instead of 2 p.m. as Dr. Prudge would have had it. Furthermore, my hooked root had slithered around and popped out of my gum as clean and neat as you please; I hadn't fainted, and there had been no abscess. I had suffered all that mental torture for nothing. No—not for nothing. I found that out when my bill came in. A few days later, Dr. Prudge rushed into my chop. "Shave and a haircut," he snapped. Slowly, and with a vengeful savour, I stropped my razor. I approached him with a brushful of lather.

"Ah!" I exclaimed, holding the brush aloft, as I frowned upon hi« face. "Your skin looks a bit scurfy or eczemie, and there's a spot of ringworm on your left temple. I'll have to mix a special lather for you." "Nonsense man! Go ahead and shave me." Having Revenge. I was already busy with one or two bottles of skin lotion. I poured some in a mug and mixed a fresh lather. "You want to take care of those spots under your chin, too," I said warningly. T shaved hiin with a show of exaggerated care, but managed to nick him every once in a while or let the shaving brush skid into his mouth. Then I picked up the scissors, snipped off a bit of hair and stood transfixed, with my hands in mid air. "Good heavens, sir. Do you know what's happening to your head?" "No. And I don't want to know." "I'm afraid you have a case of mange —blind mange. The worst kind. It doesn't show on top except in those two little mothv patches behind your ear?. But it goes to the roots and causes the liair to grow in instead of out. and as it grows, the roots curl up. I dire not put the hair behind your ears. It's a case for tweezers —a minor operation, in fact."

As I spoke. I paissed a towel about the front of Dr. Prudge's neck and fastened his head firmly to the neckrest of the chair. I paid no attention to what he was trying to say. "You should have come in earlier, Dr. Prudge, this is going to be a long job. The hair roots may be matted together by now, and if so it will be necessary to lift small portion® of the scalp and take the hair out from underneath. If neglected it produces hairbrain, and— "Steady now, Dr. Prudge, steady, or I may accidentally hurt you." With a pair of eyebrow tweezers I pulled out several hairs from behind my patient's ears, and took them to the window, where I looked them over carefully. "Strange," I muttered, pulling out another assortment and examining them still more minutely.

"Dr. Prudge," I exclaimed, "calm yourself. You are a very fortunate man. We have caught this case in the nick of time." I picked up a bottle of hair tonic and anointed his scalp. "I shall merely give you an application of this famous anti-mange treatment, and the disease will be arrested. And now I think I can use the scissors." When I had finished. I said in a voice that I hoped sounded casual, "Three dollars, please." "What!" shouted Dr. Prudge. "What? Are you —" "That covers our special eczemic shave, tweezer service for curled roots, and mange treatment." I explained. And now I must find a new dentist.