The Daily Tribune from Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin • Page 6

Saturday, October 4, "iiiiraiiiiiiiiiiiiiioiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin1 El i. uyS) By JOSEPH I'AUS Wisconsin Kapids Daily Ttitmnt A A nW lllji I 1 'II Ml I Being the; ridiculous romance of Oliver Whidden, insurance salesman; who found his love i thelcavity of a bad tooth Illustrations By GLADYS PARKER WlLLiL 111 "Wider, please," sweetly commanded Miss eor gian a Smith and Mr. Oliver Whidden sourly obeyed. Mr. Whidden Was in no position to utter a single syllable.

"Wider, please," sweetly commanded Miss Georgiana Smith, whereupon Mr. Oliver Whidden sourly obeyed. His oral orifice taut with clastic, Mr. Whidden was in no position to utter any syllables, mono or pcly. As the female practitioner began efficiently "a drill, blithely oblivious to certain wrilhings, he monolcgued companionably of some of this, i little of that and a few of the other.

"A great many folks in my home town evidenced surprise when I took up dentistry," she "but it was absolutely necessary that I 3a to work or marry, and I chose the lesser of the two evils, particularly as no one asked me to marry. My father was a poor southern planter a Miami undertaker for in Florida, according to the chamber of commerce, no one ever dies; so, to help, out, I took a course in dentistry, my departure for Crestview, cognizance of the pull a dentist could exert here, and now I am taking all I can get. Open wider, please. "It would amaze the layman," she declared, changing a coarse drill for a fine, "to know the many -troubles that teeth repair can eliminate. If your mother-in-law is coming for a visit, have her bicuspids overhauled, and it will cost so much she can't afford to come.

If you have "What," countered Miss Georgiana Smith sweetly, you think I had been needlessly filling and refilling one tooth for?" "Oh, Oliver, someone may see 1 SIFT rrrr 41m 7 Call KS it 1 I "J' just sold two big blanket policies to Jacob Blatzerman. I can't understand what made him relent so suddenly, but he telephoned me to come around to his office and there was a check waiting for me. Well, I've got to be going." Mr. Hector desired to know where, and Mr. Whidden said to his dentist.

"As usual," added Mr. Hector. "You must be gifted with an abnormal large number of infected grinders, old scout." "No," seriously rejoined the old scout. "It's not the teeth it's the dentist. She is ju.t inferior practitioner, taking a real man's job, and all this time has been treating only one tooth." Miss Georgiana Smith, the female dentist, did not seem to be in a very cheerful mood when her handsome young masculine patient, feeling very generous and broad-minded, due to his recent success, debonairly strolled into the sacred precincts of amalgam, novacaine and tweezers.

She had little to offer except a blank smile and the chair, and Mr. Whidden sank into the latter and reciprocated the former. For the first time he noted, as she deftly dug a sixth temporary filling from a clean cavity, that there was a very charming and cute little dimple in her right He thought, va-grantly, a dimple like that really should be bending over a cradle or a stove instead of a dentist's chair; and, fascinated, he gazed more attentively. "TITYHAT arc you looking at?" abruptly YV aske M'ss Smith, straightening up. "Your pretty dimple," said Mr.

Whidden before he realized what he was "I got that dimple from sleeping with my face on a collar button," coldly explained the dentistress. "It was my brother's collar button. Open wide, please." As he left the office some time later, very much puzzled as to Miss Georgiana Smith's queer reticence, he espied Jacob Blatzerman in the reception room perusing a 1 908 magazine. Mr. Blatzerman was in a very convivial mood, probably due to the quaint magazine.

R. OLIVER WHIDDEN. a handsome young bachelor desiccating in a city called Crestview, while partaking of a chilled concoction in a pharmaceutical em ponum with a friend named Harry Hector, eloquently orated on a favorite subject entitled The Tragic Decadence cf Modern Femininity. "Woman's place," proclaimed young Mr Whidden in tones as final and definite as yes terday's sunset, "is the home. Nowadays alto gether too many of them are using powde: puffs in business offices and diabolically seek ing to take the reigns of commercial supremacy from the male.

"It used to be." he earnestly vocalized, "tha; a girl's sole ambition in life was to catch a good husband, have a nice home and raise a fine family. What is a girl's sole ambition today? Why, it is to learn a trade or profession, become independent, and forget time-honored conventions and her biological mission in life. What man wants to ask a fcirl who is making as much money as he is to be his wife? What man wants to ask a girl who knows nothing of domesticity to be his wife? What man "What girl," interrupted Harry Hector, that sitting over there?" His friend glanced in mild pique where the other optically pointed. the young lady at a neighboring table was an attractive brownet, with ponderosity ideal, contours intriguing and facial features adorable. She wore a pink hat, a dress with ruffles and a very capable expression.

"She looks like $1.79 more than the cost of a modern battleship," enthused Mr. Hector. "I wouldn't mind meeting her." "She is probably," bittcrized the bach-elir, "just another one of the feminine gender who has rashly and irrevocably deserted tatting for typing or cooking for corking. Say, Harry, I've an awful toothache -it's been bothering me for hours. It worried the life out of me while I was trying to sell Jacob Blatzerman some insurance this morning gee, I'd like to land that commission! Well, I can't stand this torture I think I'll go to see a dentist right away." HARRY sympathetically remarked his pal's jaw was indeed somewhat swollen, and Mr.

Whidden arose from his chair, told Harry he would see him later, and started from the room. He was surprised, as he came opposite the strange young lady's table, to have hif hurried progress intercepted by the s. y. I. herself.

"I beg your pardon," requested the aforesaid herself in tones dulcet and polite, "but I cannot fail to note the look of anguish in your eyes and the slight inflation of the jaw. Are you afflicted with peridontoclosia?" "No." responded Mr. Whidden numbly, "just a toothache." "That's the same thing." assured the beautiful being. "I'm a dentist, and 1 ought to know. There is nothing in the world more aggravating than a tooth aching unless it is two teeth aching, so kindly accompany me and I'll put you out( of your misery.

Here's my professional card." The card said "Georgiana Smith. D. D. and Mr. Oliver Whidden said nothing at all, for there seemed to be no evading the direct invitation albeit inward rebellion immediately arose against the ignominy of being the patient of a female dental doctor.

They went, silently, into a large building and then into a reception room of one of the well-known painless establishments. Miss Georgiana Smith, pink hat, ruffles and all, disappeared through an innei doorway, and when she reappeared she was attired in starchy, immaculate white. "Come in," she briskly ordered, "and take the chair." The patient hesitated, still feeling like a traitor to his virile sex, and then, as the trip-hammer in his jaw began again to trip, he went timidly in, took the chair, and she took a ridiculous linen bib and tied it around his tanned neck. 44-XPEN, please," she said. Mr.

Whidden, l) terribly embarrassed, opened his mouth. It just didn't seem right, somehow, open his mouth like that before a lady even if she was one of those modern creatures with an obsession for sordid money instead of a nice home and a good husband. The gentleman, on request, told the lady what tooth ached, and she energetically laid out a large number of evil-looking instruments. "A dentist can never tell," she commented sociably while he gazed, alarmed, "when he will need his chhcls and curets, or hoes and files. Too, it is advisable at all times to have his resectors, fulcrums and spoons at hand, and also I had better get out my excavators, pluggers and cones for any sudden emergency, Kindly open again." Mr.

Oliver Whidden opened again. til I "did thai told his chum, Harry Hector, a few hours later. "Of all the talkative, frivolous, shallow-minded working girls," he asseverated scornfully, "she is Kirs. Abou Ben Adhem. Naturally she aspires to financial independence in her occupation, but she is plainly doomed to failure.

She should have taken a course in husband hunting instead of tooth pulling. I wouldn't go back there again unless I had to. Darn this tooth, anyway 1" "Sez he!" grinned Mr. Hector. "Say, how are you coming on with your big chance, Mr.

Blatzerman?" "I'm going backwards," admitted the salesman gloomily. "He won't listen to reason at all he's curt and cross all the time. Honestly, I believe there's something radically wrong with that man. I wish I could persuade him to take out that blanket fire-and-storm insurance policy on his factory buildings and a blanket sickness-accident-and-dealh policy on all his employes. A sale like that would bring enough to pay." he flushed, "for a honeymoon, for instance." TUESDAY at 10 a.

m. Mr. Oliver Whidden was no sooner in the chair than the dentistress synchronously be-jan dental and verbal operations. "A person of your age," she stated, deftly digging out the temporary filling, "should be cognizant of the important fact his teeth should be cared for regularly and systematically, thus assuring adequate pulverization as well as sufficient distinegration. A dentist in time saves nine dollars, and often a tooth.

What you need is a wife to remind you of such monetary and health precautions. Keep your mouth open, please. "By the way," pleasantly she detoured, know several young ladies in the insurance business, and their list of whys and wherefores contains more than the well-known 14 A girl these times," she continued with candid serenity, "has to get out into the world to meet a fellow of her own age. In olden days the men were gallant and considerate enough to go to the girl home to get acquainted but now they look them up in stores and offices. I claim that marriages may be made in heaven, but the engagements are fixed back of counters and desks.

"Still, tfagedy persists; many a gir has an unhappy wedlock because she listened to Lohengrin before she was fully able to support a husband. It used to be that when a girl planned to marry she quit her job now she asks for a raise. And to what is this grievous thing due? It is due to the tragic decadence of modern masculinity. Wider, please." The lovely female dental doctor switched off the electric drill, glanced at one of the decadent members modern masculinity, and asked, "Don't, you think I am right?" "Glub-glub," emitted the patient, undergoing a mental convulsion. That was all he could articulate.

"Thanks," said Miss Georgiana Smith. "I knew you would agree." And at that Mr. Oliver Whidden emitted two glub-glubs. Damn it all, anyway THE day of his last scheduled visit the sixth to his favorite dentist, Mr. Whidden chanced to meet his friend, Harry Hector; and Harry, glimpsing an aura of prosperity about the other, remarked that the insurance millennium must have come.

1 "It has!" jubilated the salesman. "I 1 HE grasped the salesman's hand" in greeting. "This reminds me," he declared, "that I should explain my recent sudden change of mind about the insurance policies you offered me, Mr. Whidden. My former refusals were due to my teeth." "Your teeth!" exclaimed Mr.

Whidden. "Your teeth?" "Yes, indeed," smiled Mr. Blatzerman. "For a long time, unknown to myself, I had several severely infected molars, the poisons from which pradual'y spread down into the body, affecting r.iy health as well as my reposition, and making me extremely cross un easonable. I vas tardily made aware of tills by a young lady, the dentist in there, whom I happened to meet and who persuaded me to have an X-ray, and in time fortunately cured me of the aggravating trouble.

Once in normal condition, I realized I should take advantage of the policies you offered and therefore gladly signed up for them." Blatzerman," said the salesman, "do you mind telling me when it was you first met Miss Smith?" Mr. Blatzerman did not mind, and said, after some thought, it was four weeks ago last Thursday; and then the inner door opened and the painless expert called, "You may come in now, Mr. Blatzerman." When the elderly patient emerged about an hour later he was surprised to find that Mr. Oliver Whidden was still in the reception room, but he went out without saying a word, and when Miss Smith came in and saw Mr. Whidden she was astonished and said several words, in consecutive order, "Did you forget something, Mr.

Whidden?" "N( replied Mr. Whidden, "I remem bered something. I remember it was four weeks ago Wednesday when I first saw you, the day before you met Mr. Blatzerman. I also remember that Harry Hector, whom you know, told me you inadvertently said Mr.

Blatzerman dental work would mean something to a third party and consequently I want to thank you for aiding me in a business way. Don't I owe you something?" "You owe me nothing pecuniary," calmly responded Miss Georgiana Smith, doffing her-white apron and cap, "but you may design to offer remuneration in the shape of some revised opinions regarding the purported decadence of modern womanhood. "I am willing to admit I overheard your pyrotechnics a few moments before first we met. But ponder: it is barely possible that in the stress of modern business and professional competition a woman's help may really be needed to augment a man's her husbnd's or prospective husband's; and that with -such loyal co-operation they can probably save enough out of their joint earnings to establish a nice home, in which ultimately the lady can retire and raise a fine family, while the husband naturally continues to carry on outside. Kindly open wide your tolerant mind, Mr.

Whidden." "Miss Smith," Mr. Oliver Whidden rejoined earnestly, "my mind has just opened wide and will remain that way permanently. "I wonder," he appended humbly, "if you will be so generous as to favor me with a date tomorrow night?" "What," countered Miss Georgiana Smith sweetly, "did you think I had been needlessly, filling and refilling that one tooth for, over and over again? Oh, Oliver, someone may see usl" ililliiii! rheumatism, you have iheuniatism, and that probably all there is to it, but if you go to sec your dentist the extraction of one tooth may cure your rheumatism, and that's no after-dinner speech I haven't had dinner yet. Wider, please. "I believe," she rambled on, laboring indus triously the while, "that you are an insurance salesman.

You have the appearance, bearing and poise of the successful insurance salesman; and, besides, that card peeping out of your vest pocket says you are an insurance salesman. I' hope you don't decry the entrance of my sex into your field of noble endeavor; girls have to live, and if their father is retired, one brother too tired and the other too lazy, it's up to them to go out and earn the dough to bring home the bread. Open wider, please." WHEN Mr. Oliver Whidden finally got out of the chair he felt physically mangled and mentally outraged. The little wretch had taken unfair advantage of him, because he couldn't talk and show her where she was 101 per cent wrong.

"How much," he inquired tersely and icily, manfully withholding his surging temper, "do I owe you?" "Oh," explained Miss Georgiana Smith naively, "that is only a temporary filling. I won't know the fee until I finish. This is the first of a series of visits to your favorite dentist. Mr. Whidden, I should inform you that removing foreign deposits, smoothing and polishing of denuded and infected ccmentum, excavation of necrotic tissues at base of crevice, subgingival curettage operations, and elimination of epithelium from the peridontal walls requires considerable Ingersoll, so don't be an impatient patient.

Come again Tuesday at 1 0 a. m. Good-day. Mr. Whidden." It was not a good day to IVir.

Wludcien, flc II" beg your pardon," requested the aforesaid s. y. I "Arc you afflicted nilh peridontoclosia?" "No," responded Mr. Whidden numbly, "just "That's the sane thing," assured the beautiful being. "I'm a dentist, and I ought to l(note.

S. (Copyright, 1930, Ey EvoryWcck Magazine Printed In U. own.