PHILIP. Don’t forget half past one.
DOLLY. Mind you leave Mr. Crampton with enough teeth to eat with. (They go out. Valentine comes down to his cabinet, and opens it.)
CRAMPTON. That’s a spoiled child, Mr. Valentine. That’s one of your modern products. When I was her age, I had many a good hiding fresh in my memory to teach me manners.
VALENTINE (taking up his dental mirror and probe from the shelf in front of the cabinet). What did you think of her sister?
CRAMPTON. You liked her better, eh?
VALENTINE (rhapsodically). She struck me as being — (He checks himself, and adds, prosaically) However, that’s not business. (He places himself behind Crampton’s right shoulder and assumes his professional tone.) Open, please. (Crampton opens his mouth. Valentine puts the mirror in, and examines his teeth.) Hm! You have broken that one. What a pity to spoil such a splendid set of teeth! Why do you crack nuts with them? (He withdraws the mirror, and comes forward to converse with Crampton.)
CRAMPTON. I’ve always cracked nuts with them: what else are they for? (Dogmatically.) The proper way to keep teeth good is to give them plenty of use on bones and nuts, and wash them every day with soap — plain yellow soap.
VALENTINE. Soap! Why soap?
CRAMPTON. I began using it as a boy because I was made to; and I’ve used it ever since. And I never had toothache in my life.
VALENTINE. Don’t you find it rather nasty?
CRAMPTON. I found that most things that were good for me were nasty. But I was taught to put up with them, and made to put up with them. I’m used to it now: in fact, I like the taste when the soap is really good.
VALENTINE (making a wry face in spite of himself). You seem to have been very carefully educated, Mr. Crampton.
CRAMPTON (grimly). I wasn’t spoiled, at all events.
VALENTINE (smiling a little to himself). Are you quite sure?
CRAMPTON. What d’y’ mean?
VALENTINE. Well, your teeth are good, I admit. But I’ve seen just as good in very self-indulgent mouths. (He goes to the ledge of cabinet and changes the probe for another one.)
CRAMPTON. It’s not the effect on the teeth: it’s the effect on the character.
VALENTINE (placably). Oh, the character, I see. (He recommences operations.) A little wider, please. Hm! That one will have to come out: it’s past saving. (He withdraws the probe and again comes to the side of the chair to converse.) Don’t be alarmed: you shan’t feel anything. I’ll give you gas.
CRAMPTON. Rubbish, man: I want none of your gas. Out with it. People were taught to bear necessary pain in my day.
VALENTINE. Oh, if you like being hurt, all right. I’ll hurt you as much as you like, without any extra charge for the beneficial effect on your character.
CRAMPTON (rising and glaring at him). Young man: you owe me six weeks’ rent.
VALENTINE. I do.
CRAMPTON. Can you pay me?
VALENTINE. No.
CRAMPTON (satisfied with his advantage). I thought not. How soon d’y’ think you’ll be able to pay me if you have no better manners than to make game of your patients? (He sits down again.)
VALENTINE. My good sir: my patients haven’t all formed their characters on kitchen soap.
CRAMPTON (suddenly gripping him by the arm as he turns away again to the cabinet). So much the worse for them. I tell you you don’t understand my character. If I could spare all my teeth, I’d make you pull them all out one after another to shew you what a properly hardened man can go through with when he’s made up his mind to do it. (He nods at him to enforce the effect of this declaration, and releases him.)
VALENTINE (his careless pleasantry quite unruffled). And you want to be more hardened, do you?
CRAMPTON. Yes.
VALENTINE (strolling away to the bell). Well, you’re quite hard enough for me already — as a landlord. (Crampton receives this with a growl of grim humor. Valentine rings the bell, and remarks in a cheerful, casual way, whilst waiting for it to be answered.) Why did you never get married, Mr. Crampton? A wife and children would have taken some of the hardness out of you.
CRAMPTON (with unexpected ferocity). What the devil is that to you? (The parlor maid appears at the door.)
VALENTINE (politely). Some warm water, please. (She retires: and Valentine comes back to the cabinet, not at all put out by Crampton’s rudeness, and carries on the conversation whilst he selects a forceps and places it ready to his hand with a gag and a drinking glass.) You were asking me what the devil that was to me. Well, I have an idea of getting married myself.
CRAMPTON (with grumbling irony). Naturally, sir, naturally. When a young man has come to his last farthing, and is within twenty-four hours of having his furniture distrained upon by his landlord, he marries. I’ve noticed that before. Well, marry; and be miserable.
VALENTINE. Oh, come, what do you know about it?
CRAMPTON. I’m not a bachelor.
VALENTINE. Then there is a Mrs. Crampton?
CRAMPTON (wincing with a pang of resentment). Yes — damn her!
VALENTINE (unperturbed). Hm! A father, too, perhaps, as well as a husband, Mr. Crampton?
CRAMPTON. Three children.
VALENTINE (politely). Damn them? — eh?
CRAMPTON (jealously). No, sir: the children are as much mine as hers. (The parlor maid brings in a jug of hot water.)
VALENTINE. Thank you. (He takes the jug from her, and brings it to the cabinet, continuing in the same idle strain) I really should like to know your family, Mr. Crampton. (The parlor maid goes out: and he pours some hot water into the drinking glass.)
CRAMPTON. Sorry I can’t introduce you, sir. I’m happy to say that I don’t know where they are, and don’t care, so long as they keep out of my way. (Valentine, with a hitch of his eyebrows and shoulders, drops the forceps with a clink into the glass of hot water.) You needn’t warm that thing to use on me. I’m not afraid of the cold steel. (Valentine stoops to arrange the gas pump and cylinder beside the chair.) What’s that heavy thing?
VALENTINE. Oh, never mind. Something to put my foot on, to get the necessary purchase for a good pull. (Crampton looks alarmed in spite of himself. Valentine stands upright and places the glass with the forceps in it ready to his hand, chatting on with provoking indifference.) And so you advise me not to get married, Mr. Crampton? (He stoops to fit the handle on the apparatus by which the chair is raised and lowered.)
CRAMPTON (irritably). I advise you to get my tooth out and have done reminding me of my wife. Come along, man. (He grips the arms of the chair and braces himself.)
VALENTINE (pausing, with his hand on the lever, to look up at him and say). What do you bet that I don’t get that tooth out without your feeling it?
CRAMPTON. Your six week’s rent, young man. Don’t you gammon me.
VALENTINE (jumping at the bet and winding him aloft vigorously). Done! Are you ready? (Crampton, who has lost his grip of the chair in his alarm at its sudden ascent, folds his arms: sits stiffly upright: and prepares for the worst. Valentine lets down the back of the chair to an obtuse angle.)
CRAMPTON (clutching at the arms of the chair as he falls back). Take care man. I’m quite helpless in this po —
VALENTINE (deftly stopping him with the gag, and snatching up the mouthpiece of the gas machine). You’ll be more helpless presently. (He presses the mouthpiece over Crampton’s mouth and nose, leaning over his chest so as to hold his head and shoulders well down on the chair. Crampton makes an inarticulate sound in the mouthpiece and tries to lay