Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels by Stephen Leacock (early readers txt) 📗

in, "but you know as well as I do that you get case after case where the cellar diagnosis is simply vital. I had a case last week, a most interesting thing—" he turned to the group of us as he spoke—"a double lesion of a gas-pipe under a cement floor—half a dozen of my colleagues had been absolutely baffled. They had made an entirely false diagnosis, operated on the dining-room floor, which they removed and carried home, and when I was called in they had just obtained permission from the Stone Mason's Protective Association to knock down one side of the house."

"Excuse me interrupting just a minute," interjected a member of the group who hailed from a distant city, "have you much trouble[Pg 183] about that? I mean about knocking the sides out of houses?"

"No trouble now," said Fortescue. "We did have. But the public is getting educated up to it. Our law now allows us to knock the side out of a house when we feel that we would really like to see what is in it. We are not allowed, of course, to build it up again."

"No, of course not," said the other speaker. "But I suppose you can throw the bricks out on the lawn."

"Yes," said Fortescue, "and sit on them to eat lunch. We had a big fight in the legislature over that, but we got it through."

"Thank you, but I feel I am interrupting."

"Well, I was only saying that, as soon as I had made up my mind that the trouble was in the cellar, the whole case was simple. I took my colleagues down at once, and we sat on the floor of the cellar and held a consultation till the overpowering smell of gas convinced me that there was nothing for it but an operation on the floor. The whole thing was most successful. I was very glad, as it happened that[Pg 184] the proprietor of the house was a very decent fellow, employed, I think, as a manager of a bank, or something of the sort. He was most grateful. It was he who gave me the engraved monkey wrench that some of you were admiring before dinner. After we had finished the whole operation—I forgot to say that we had thrown the coal out on the lawn to avoid any complication—he quite broke down. He offered us to take his whole house and keep it."

"You don't do that, do you?" asked the outsider.

"Oh no, never," said Fortescue. "We've made a very strict professional rule against it. We found that some of the younger men were apt to take a house when they were given it, and we had to frown down on it. But, gentlemen, I feel that when Mr. Thornton says that he never goes down into a cellar there must be a story behind it. I think we should invite him to relate it to us."

A murmur of assent greeted the speaker's suggestion. For myself I was particularly pleased, inasmuch as I have long felt that[Pg 185] Thornton as a raconteur was almost as interesting as in the rôle of an operating plumber. I have often told him that, if he had not happened to meet success in his chosen profession, he could have earned a living as a day writer: a suggestion which he has always taken in good part and without offence.

Those of my readers who have looked through the little volume of Reminiscences which I have put together, will recall the narrative of The Missing Nut and the little tale entitled The Blue Blow Torch as instances in point.

"Not much of a story, perhaps," said Thornton, "but such as it is you are welcome to it. So, if you will just fill up your glasses with raspberry vinegar, you may have the tale for what it is worth."

We gladly complied with the suggestion and Thornton continued:

"It happened a good many years ago at a time when I was only a young fellow fresh from college, very proud of my Plumb. B., and inclined to think that I knew it all. I had done[Pg 186] a little monograph on Choked Feed in the Blow Torch, which had attracted attention, and I suppose that altogether I was about as conceited a young puppy as one would find in the profession. I should mention that at this time I was not married, but had set up a modest apartment of my own with a consulting-room and a single manservant. Naturally I could not afford the services of a solderist or a gassist and did everything for myself, though Simmons, my man, could at a pinch be utilized to tear down plaster and break furniture."

Thornton paused to take a sip of raspberry vinegar and went on:

"Well, then. I had come home to dinner particularly tired after a long day. I had sat in an attic the greater part of the afternoon (a case of top story valvular trouble) and had had to sit in a cramped position which practically forbade sleep. I was feeling, therefore, none too well pleased, when a little while after dinner the bell rang and Simmons brought word to the library that there was a client in the consulting-room. I reminded the fellow[Pg 187] that I could not possibly consider a case at such an advanced hour unless I were paid emergency overtime wages with time and a half during the day of recovery."

"One moment," interrupted the outside member. "You don't mention compensation for mental shock. Do you not draw that here?"

"We do now" explained Thornton, "but the time of which I speak is some years ago and we still got nothing for mental shock, nor disturbance of equilibrium. Nowadays, of course, one would insist on a substantial retainer in advance.

"Well, to continue. Simmons, to my surprise, told me that he had already informed the client of this fact, and that the answer had only been a plea that the case was too urgent to admit of delay. He also supplied the further information that the client was a young lady. I am afraid," added Thornton, looking round his audience with a sympathetic smile, "that Simmons (I had got him from Harvard and he had not yet quite learned his place)[Pg 188] even said something about her being strikingly handsome."

A general laugh greeted Thornton's announcement.

"After all," said Fortescue, "I never could see why an Ice Man should be supposed to have a monopoly on gallantry."

"Oh, I don't know," said Thornton. "For my part—I say it without affectation—the moment I am called in professionally, women, as women, cease to exist for me. I can stand beside them in the kitchen and explain to them the feed tap of a kitchen range without feeling them to be anything other than simply clients. And for the most part, I think, they reciprocate that attention. There are women, of course, who will call a man in with motives—but that's another story. I must get back to what I was saying.

"On entering the consulting-room I saw at once that Simmons had exaggerated nothing in describing my young client as beautiful. I have seldom, even among our own class, seen a more strikingly handsome girl. She was[Pg 189] dressed in a very plain and simple fashion which showed me at once that she belonged merely to the capitalist class. I am, as I think you know, something of an observer, and my eye at once noted the absence of heavy gold ear-rings and wrist-bangles. The blue feathers at the side of her hat were none of them more than six inches long, and the buttons on her jacket were so inconspicuous that one would hardly notice them. In short, while her dress was no doubt good and serviceable, there was an absence of chic, a lack of noise about it, that told at once the tale of narrow circumstances.

"She was evidently in great distress.

"'Oh, Mr. Thornton,' she exclaimed, advancing towards me, 'do come to our house at once. I simply don't know what to do.'

"She spoke with great emotion, and seemed almost on the point of breaking into tears.

"'Pray, calm yourself, my dear young lady,' I said, 'and try to tell me what is the trouble.'

"'Oh, don't lose any time,' she said, 'do, do come at once.'[Pg 190]

"'We will lose no time' I said reassuringly, as I looked at my watch. 'It is now seven-thirty. We will reckon the time from now, with overtime at time and a half. But if I am to do anything for you I must have some idea of what has happened.'

"'The cellar boiler,' she moaned, clasping her hands together, 'the cellar boiler won't work!'

"'Ah!' I said soothingly. 'The cellar boiler won't work. Now tell me, is the feed choked, miss?'

"'I don't know,' she exclaimed.

"'Have you tried letting off the exhaust?'

"She shook her head with a doleful look.

"'I don't know what it is,' she said.

"But already I was hastily gathering together a few instruments, questioning her rapidly as I did so.

"'How's your pressure gauge?' I asked. 'How's your water? Do you draw from the mains or are you on the high level reservoir?'

"It had occurred to me at once that it might[Pg 191] be merely a case of stoppage of her main feed, complicated, perhaps, with a valvular trouble in her exhaust. On the other hand it was clear enough that, if her feed was full and her gauges working, her trouble was more likely a leak somewhere in her piping.

"But all attempts to draw from the girl any clear idea of the symptoms were unavailing. All she could tell me was that the cellar boiler wouldn't work. Beyond that her answers were mere confusion. I gathered enough, however, to feel sure that her main feed was still working, and that her top story check valve was probably in order. With that I had to be content.

"As a young practitioner, I had as yet no motor car. Simmons, however, summoned me a taxi, into which I hurriedly placed the girl and my basket of instruments, and was soon speeding in the direction she indicated. It was a dark, lowering night, with flecks of rain against the windows of the cab, and there was something in the lateness of the hour (it was now after half-past eight) and the nature of my mission which gave me a stimulating sense[Pg 192] of adventure. The girl directed me, as I felt sure she would, towards the capitalist quarter of the town. We had soon sped away from the brightly lighted streets and tall apartment buildings among which my usual practice lay, and entered the gloomy and dilapidated section of the city where the unhappy capitalist class reside. I need not remind those of you who know it that it is scarcely a cheerful place to find oneself in after nightfall. The thick growth of trees, the silent gloom of the ill-lighted houses, and the rank undergrowth of shrubs give it an air of desolation, not to say danger. It is certainly not the place that a professional man would choose to be abroad in after dark. The inhabitants, living, so it is said, on their scanty dividends and on such parts of their income as our taxation is still unable to reach, are not people that one would care to fall in with after nightfall.

"Since the time of which I speak we have done much to introduce a better state of things. The opening of day schools of carpentry, plumbing and calcimining for the children of[Pg 193] the capitalist is already producing results. Strange though it may seem, one of the most brilliant of our boiler fitters of to-day was brought up haphazard in this very quarter of the town and educated only by a French governess and a university tutor. But at the time practically nothing had been done. The place was infested with consumers, and there were still, so it was said, servants living in some of the older houses. A butler had been caught one night in a thick shrubbery beside one of the gloomy streets.

"We alighted at one of the most sombre of the houses, and our taxi-driver, with evident relief, made off in the darkness.

"The girl admitted us into a dark hall, where she turned on an electric light. 'We have light,' she said, with that peculiar touch of pride that one sees so often in her class, 'we have four bulbs.'

"Then she called down a flight of stairs that apparently led to the cellar:

"'Father, the plumber has come. Do come up now, dear, and rest.'[Pg 194]

"A step sounded on the stairs, and there appeared beside us one of the most forbidding-looking men that I have ever beheld. I don't know whether any of you have ever seen an Anglican Bishop. Probably not. Outside of the bush, they are now never seen. But at the time of which I speak there were a few still here and there in the purlieus of the city. The man before us was tall and ferocious, and his native ferocity was further enhanced by the heavy black beard which he wore in open defiance of the compulsory shaving laws. His black shovel-shaped hat and his black clothes lent him a