Mrs. St. Aubyn's conversation dealt mainly with the food, and was aimed at the maid, whose blunders were apparently legion, but even she found leisure, as did every person in the room, for a quip with the jocund ruling spirit of the feast, Dr. Paul Bartlett. Coming last, the dentist instantly leavened the whole lump. He drew gems of dramatic criticism from the players, got the bookworm's opinion of a popular novel, inquired the day's happenings on 'Change' from the shorn lamb, discussed a murder trial with the legal stenographer, the outrageous rise in price of coal with Mrs. St. Aubyn, and the growing extravagance of women's sleeves with Amy and the manicure, all between the soup and fish. In fine, as Mrs. St. Aubyn loudly whispered to Jean in leaving the dining room, he was the life of the occasion. Whether he heard this or not, Doctor Bartlett redoubled his efforts, if they were efforts, when after eddying uncertainly about the newel post of the main hall the company finally drifted into the drawing-room.
This was not a blithesome apartment. It ran extraordinarily to length and height, Jean thought, rather to the scamping of its third dimension, and was decorated after the dreary fashion of the decade immediately succeeding the Civil War. Its woodwork was black walnut, its chandelier a writhing mass of tortured metal, its mantelpiece a marble sepulchre. A bedizened family Bible of some thirty pounds avoirdupois, lying upon a stand ill designed to bear its weight, blocked one window, while a Rogers group, similarly supported, filled the other. The pictures were sadly allegorical save one, a large engraving entitled "The Trial of Effie Deans." Yet, despite these handicaps, the dentist contrived to give the room an air of cheer. Spying a deck of cards upon the entablature of the mausoleum, he performed a mystifying trick, which he followed with fortunes, told as cleverly as a gypsy's, and with feats of sleight of hand. Then, dropping to the piano-stool, he coaxed from the venerable instrument a two-step which set everybody's feet beating time; passed from this to a "coon song" one could easily imagine was sung by a negro; and, finally, chief marvel of all, he succeeded in luring everybody except Jean into joining the chorus of the latest popular air. In the midst of all these things he narrated most amusing little stories, mainly of dentists' offices, punctuated with dental oaths and imprecations like "Holy Molars" and "Suffering Bicuspid," which sounded comically profane without being so.
The girls discussed him animatedly from their pillows in the wonderful room of three dormers.
"Didn't I tell you he was sociable?" Amy demanded. "Can't he sing simply dandy? And isn't he good-looking?"
Jean gave a general assent. She liked the young fellow's breeziness. She liked his cleanliness, too, and remarked upon it.
"I noticed it first of all," she said.
"Yes, and what's better," added Amy, "you'll never see him look any different. He says soap and water mean dollars in his business. That's one reason why he's so run after at the parlors. None of the other dentists there seem to care."
"Then he hasn't an office of his own?"
"Not yet. He works in a Painless Dental Parlor over on Sixth Avenue. You'll know the place by a tall darky in uniform they keep at the foot of the stairs to hand out circulars."
"Do you suppose he thought it strange that I didn't sing with the rest?" Jean asked anxiously. "He looked round twice."