“Nonsense!” says she. “You come right downstairs and see Dr. Toodle. He’ll fix it in no time.”
Seems this Toodle was the one the party had been arranged for, and Sadie has to hunt him up. It didn’t take long to trail him down; for pretty soon she comes towin’ him into the drawin’-room, where I’m camped down on a sofa, holdin’ on with both hands.
“Dr. Toodle,” says she, “I want to present Mr. McCabe.”
Now, I don’t claim any seventh-son powers; but I only has to take one look at Toodle to guess that he’s some sort of a phony article. No reg’lar pill distributor would wear around that mushy look that he has on. He’s a good sized, wide shouldered duck, with a thick crop of long hair that just clears his coat collar, and one of these smooth, soft, sentimental faces the women folks go nutty over,—you know, big nose, heavy chin, and sagged mouth corners. His get-up is something between a priest’s and an actor’s,—frock coat, smooth front black vest, and a collar buttoned behind. He gurgles out that he’s charmed to meet Mr. McCabe, and wants to know what’s wrong.
“Nothin’ but a specked tooth,” says I. “But I can stand it.”
“My de-e-ear brother,” says Toodle, puttin’ his fingers together and gazin’ down at me like a prison chaplain givin’ a talk to murderers’ row, “you are possessed of mental error. Your brain focus has been disturbed, and a blurred image has been cast on the sensitive retina of the——”
“Ah, say, Doc.,” says I, “cut out the preamble! If you’ve got a cocaine gun in your pocket, dig it up!”
Then he goes off again with another string of gibberish, about pain bein’ nothin’ but thought, and thought bein’ something we could steer to suit ourselves. I can’t give you the patter word for word; but the nub of it was that I could knock that toothache out in one round just by thinkin’ hard. Now wouldn’t that peeve you? What?
“All right, Doc.,” says I. “I’ll try thinkin’ I ain’t got any ache, if you’ll sit here and keep me comp’ny by thinkin’ you’ve had your dinner. Is it a go?”
Well, it wa’n’t. He shrugs his shoulders, and says he’s afraid I’m a difficult subject, and then he teeters off on his toes. Sadie tells me I ought to be ashamed of myself for tryin’ to be so fresh.