The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-01-31

Will Gun W oiNS S"S' 1SN
could go to him with tears as big as hazel
nuts in your eyes, and beg for an applica-
ton Of ether or cocaine, but you might as
well ask jackrabbit for chew of tobacco.
The doctor would look sorrowful. press
you gently back in the chair, fool around
you with a stethoscope, and gravely shake
his head.
You must never ask for anesthetics," he
would say. "Not while you have heart
action like that
Then he would clamp his coolest set OF
forceps on your tenderest tooth-the one
that felt so large-take a firm grip, give a
gouge and twist, and slowly pull off the
top of your .head. When you finally
slammed his front door and started, with
one hand on your cracked jaw and the other
on your fiuttering heart, for the nearest in
surance office to increase your insurance
before it was everlastingly too late, the
doctor would sit down in the operating
chair and grin for pure JOY till his lips
cracked.
Aside from that he didn't seem to care
much for the business.
Doctor Harvey was really cut out for a
experimentation inventor With his money
and his inventive genius for tinkering he
would have done well at that. Just back of
his operating room he had workshop
where he spent all his spare hours while
he was waiting for squirmers, and turned
out, from time to time, some remarkable
things.
His first device of any Importance was an
office-girl automaton, as natural as life. II
met every patient at the door with as i'm
pertinent a stare as ever cleaned from a
CLASSY eye, and said, in a beautifully frigid
voice:
please be seated; the doctor will wait
on you presently"
Then, if the patient was a woman, it
looked her slowly from plumes to shoe
tips and back again, with a perfectly
human disgust for THAT kind of clothes,
and carefully placed chair where the
draught would blow on the aching jaw If
the patient was a man the automaton placed
the chair in the draught just the same. and
stared fixedly at the mans cravat till he
would have given ten-dollar note for one
glance in a mirror. oh, Doctor Hickenhy-
phen knew how to rile human nature all
right.
He called her Mynnye.
He was so delighted with this triumph of
mechanics that he made bouncer next.
He had always longed for a bouncer, and
he knew just how to make one come in
handy 1t took him over a year to perfect
it, but when he got it done it was a wonder.
He kept il in closet.in the operating room,
and it was so fixed that, at the touch OF a
button, it would dash out, grab n patient
right out of the chair by the collar and
seat of his trousers, make him walk Span
ish to the door, and throw him down the
steps.
After he had this automaton working the
doctor felt free to handle very large men
with a more scientific finish. He had never
been able to get the full amount of pleasure
out of husky athletes before, but now he
made the pulling of tooth for big man a
work of art, and was able to prove his pet
theory that a big man suffers much more in
proportion than a little one. From that
time on many a quck-tempered and mus
cular patient rose from the chair with a
howl of pain, prepared to slug Doctor Har-
vey Hickenhyphen in the jaw, and suddenly
found himself on the sidewalk and ready to
apologize. Life was one rosy dream now
for the doctor.
He called the bouncer Pat. and as il
that you could have spread with trowel:
Come an out av that now, we durthy
blackgyard,'
He was so we'll pleased with himself that
he started on an automatic operator right
away This was a more delicate piece OF
work, and he spent nearly two years of his
spare time before he got ii perfected but
when it was done he justly felt that it was
the browning achievement of his life
Standing by the chair it would pass its left
arm around the patients head and CLASP
its left hand under the patients chin.
Now hold still. This won't hurt very
much" it would say in soothing voice.
Then it's right hand would come up. the
| forceps would settle down on the wrong
tooth, just like real dentist does it, and
| then would come the fine work. There
would be gouge and twist, then little
| pause for the pain to soak in, then a twist
! and yank and another little pause, ther
| a slow, steady pull and a pause, twis
| and another gouge, and so on until the
| tooth couldn't be kept in any longer, wher
| il would be yanked out with a sideways
! jerk that ripped as many nerves as posi-
| BILE.
The doctor named it 1.-The Professor" anC
| he was nearly crazy to try il on some one
| but, for some unaccountable reason, no
| body would let the automaton do the work
| so at last he had to hire a retired prize
| fighter TO come in and have a tooth pulled
The result justified the outlay and the doc
tor as he rubbed his hands together il
ecstasy, had TO acknowledge that the au
tomaton had him beat at all stages of tn
! game. 1t seemed to be calmer and TO hav
more strength than himself. and to be abb
to prolong the operation and produce abou
twice as many squrms and bowls.
He was overcome with joy that he for
got 10 stop the thing until ii had pulle
three teeth, and by that time the retire
prizefghter was ready TO pull the house u
by the roots and use ii for a battering ran
The doctor tried to pacify him. but it wa
no use, So just as the automaton let go.
touched the bouncer button, and the SUI
priced prizefghter started his Spanish two
step for the street taking parts of the fur
niture with him. Out on the sidewalk
turned on the bouncer, and the two of ther
had set-to that was the finest thing tn