"Will you come and sit in the conservatory?" continued Haliburton. "I want to say something particular to you."

Joan regarded him covertly for a moment.

"All right!" she said.

CHAPTER XVII

IN WHICH CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME, AND HUGHIE MISSES HIS TRAIN

The dentist laid aside his excavating pick with a regretful sigh, and began to fit what looked like a miniature circular saw into the end of the electric drill.

Hughie, rec.u.mbent in the chair, telling himself resolutely that, appearances to the contrary, the man was doing this because it was really necessary, and not from mere voluptuousness, cautiously inserted his tongue into the hole, and calculated that the final clearance would be a three minutes' job at the shortest.

"It seems hard to believe," said the dentist morosely, setting the machinery of the drill in motion with his foot, "that your teeth have not been attended to for eight years. A little wider, please!"

Hughie realised that he was being called a liar as unmistakably as a man can be; but at this moment the drill came into full operation, and he merely gripped the arms of the chair.

"A man," continued the dentist, removing the drill and suddenly syringing the cavity with ice-cold water,--"empty, please!--should make a point of having his teeth inspected once every six months; a woman, once every three."

"A man," replied Hughie (who believed that the operations with the drill were completed), "must have his teeth inspected when he can. That is,"

he added rapidly,--the dentist was deliberately fitting a fresh tool into the drill,--"I have been abroad for the last eight or nine years."

"Away from civilisation, perhaps," said the dentist compa.s.sionately, getting good leverage for his operating hand by using Hughie's lower jaw as a fulcrum.

"Quite!" gurgled Hughie, whose head at the moment was clasped tight to his inquisitor's waistcoat b.u.t.tons.

"In that case," said the dentist in distinctly mollified tones, "we must not be too hard on you. Tongue down, please!"

He completed his excavating and inundating operations, and, regretfully pushing away the arm of the drilling-machine, began to line his victim's mouth with some material which tasted like decomposing sponge-bags.

"Your teeth have preserved their soundness in quite an unaccountable way," he continued, with the air of a just man conscientiously endeavouring to minimise a grievance. "There is one other small hole here,"--he ran a pointed instrument well into it to prove his statement,--"but beyond that there is nothing further to find fault with."

He began to pound up a mysterious mixture in a small mortar, and ran on:--

"You must have been very careful in your diet."

"No sweets," said Hughie laconically. "And I used very often to eat my meat right off the bone. That keeps teeth white, doesn't it?"

The dentist put down the mortar with some deliberation, and glared.

Anything in the shape of levity emanating from occupants of the rack jars upon a Chief Tormentor's sense of what is professionally proper.

But Hughie was lying back in the chair with his mouth open and eyes shut, exhibiting no sign of humorous intention. Still, this must not occur again. The dentist looked round for a gag. He produced from somewhere a long snaky india-rubber arrangement, terminating in a hooked nozzle. This he hung over Hughie's lower [Greek: erkos odonton], effectually stifling his utterance and reducing his share in the conversation to a sort of Morse Code of single gurgles and long-drawn sizzles suggestive of the emptying of a bath.

Then, taking up his mortar, he proceeded, with the air of one who is using a giant's strength magnanimously,--

"You have visited the Antipodes, perhaps?"

"Gug-gug-guggle!" proceeded from the india-rubber-lined orifice before him.

"Ah! that must have been very interesting," continued the dentist. "Had you many opportunities of discussing the question of Colonial Preference with the leading men out there?"

"Glug!" came the reply.

"That was unfortunate. But perhaps you were able to form some idea of the general Australian att.i.tude towards the question?"

"G-r-r-r-r-r! Guggle, guggle! Ch'k, ch'k!" observed Hughie.

"Personally," continued the dentist, rolling the pulverised substance in the mortar between his finger and thumb, and lighting a spirit-lamp, "I am an ardent upholder of the principles of that truly great man, the immortal Richard Cobden. Are you?"

Hughie, thoughtlessly lifting the gag for a moment, replied--with fatal distinctness.

It was a mad act. The dentist simply took up a humorous-looking bulb-shaped appliance, and having filled it with red-hot air at the spirit-lamp, discharged its contents, in one torrid blast, into the excavated tooth.

Twenty minutes later Hughie was ushered into the street, and stood poising himself doubtfully on the doorstep. He did not know what to do.

Strictly speaking, his next engagement should have been to entertain Mr.

Lance Gaymer at luncheon. But that exposer of fraudulent trustees had not replied to Hughie's written invitation. Hence Hughie's stork-like att.i.tude outside the dentist's premises. Personally he had not the slightest desire to entertain Lance Gaymer at luncheon or any other meal. On the other hand, he had promised Joan to seek out her brother and ascertain if all was well with him. Ergo, since the Mountain declined to come to Mohammed, or even answer his letters, Mohammed must put his pride in his pocket and go to the Mountain.

The prophet accordingly hailed a hansom, and was directing the cabman to drive to the Mountain's residence in Maida Vale,--a paradoxical address for a Mountain, by the way,--when a strange thing happened. Nay, it was a providential thing; for if Hughie had not resolutely summoned up his courage and told the dentist to go in and finish off the small hole in the last tooth,--a treat which that sated epicure was inclined to postpone until another occasion,--he would have hailed this hansom twenty minutes sooner and so missed his just reward.

Mrs. Lance Gaymer suddenly came round a corner of the quiet square, and crossed the road directly in front of Hughie's hansom. Hughie dismounted, and greeted her.

"Why," cried Mrs. Lance, "I do declare, it's Mr. Marrable!"

She smiled upon Hughie in a manner so intoxicating that the cabman coughed discreetly to the horse. That intelligent animal made no comment, but turned round and looked at the cabman.

"Fancy meeting you!" she continued archly.

"Did your husband get a letter from me yesterday, Mrs. Gaymer, do you know?" asked Hughie.

No, Mrs. Gaymer was sure he had not. The poor boy had took to his bed a week ago, with the "flu"; so Mrs. Lance had been conducting his correspondence for him, and could therefore vouch for the non-arrival of Hughie's letter. She hazarded the suggestion that possibly Hughie had written to Maida Vale.

Yes. Hughie had.

"That's it, then!" said Mrs. Lance. "We moved from there six weeks ago.

We live in Balham now."

Hughie was not sufficiently conversant with suburban caste distinctions to feel sure whether this was a step up or down in the social scale, so he merely expressed a hope that Lance was getting well again.

"I want to come and see him, if I may," he said. "I asked him to come and lunch with me, but I suppose that is out of the question at present."

"You're right there," said Mrs. Lance in distinctly guarded tones. "He ain't what you'd call spry. He's not seeing anybody."

"I shouldn't stay long," urged Hughie.