skinned them off, it turned them inside out. They’re on backwards! Can’t you get that through your head?” He jammed a cigarette in his mouth.
“Gloves! Gloves! Gloves! I tell you, for the hundredth time, you haven’t any gloves on!”
“Where is the cigarette lighter?” Dr. Departure growled, slapping his pockets. “I had it right in my vest this morning.”
“The question is,” she said, laughing a bit hysterically and throwing back the flaps of his coat, “where is your vest? Manly, I might as well tell you…I’ve already made an appointment for you.”
She dug in her purse and handed him a card.
“Schnappenhocker!” he screamed. “Bert was really very nice about it.”
“I will not go to that revolting brother of yours,” Dr. Departure shrieked, turning a shiny purple.
“Not even if he was the last doctor on earth! That pompous witch doctor! That…” Suddenly, in mid-sentence, he let out his breath and stared into space a moment, a pleased and reflective expression beginning to relax his face. Witch doctor? There was still a little powder left… Why hadn’t he thought of palming the gloves off on Bert before? That loudmouthed wit-snapper was always trying on other people’s garments for a laugh—ladies’ hats, little boys’ bow ties, Dr. Departure’s own rather conservative rain shoes. The man simply couldn’t resist a pair of rubber gloves!
“You will go,” his wife was saying in a low, vibrant voice.
“Most certainly, I will go!” Dr. Departure replied in an equally vibrant voice, the sweet smile of anticipation growing on his face.
Never were doctor and patient ever happier to see one another than the following day when Dr. Departure entered the softly shaded inner sanctum of Dr. Bert Schnappenhocker. Dr. Schnappenhocker beamed at his rival with the undisguised eagerness of an anatomy student about to dissect an especially interesting species of tailless amphibian, while Dr. Departure gazed back with the smirking innocence of one all set to administer an emotional hot-foot. For two full minutes, they wrung each other’s hand.
“Well!” Dr. Schnappenhocker finally said heartily, impatient to make the initial incision. “Emily tells me you have a little problem.”
“I hate to bother you with it, really,” Dr. Departure replied, trying to keep from grinning.
For almost an hour, Dr. Departure allowed his brother-in-law to worm the whole unlikely story out of him, then, finally, when he gave the instructions and pushed the little box of white powder across the desk, he watched Schnappenhocker shake his head with a coy gesture of hopelessness and settle back in his chair.
“Manly, old man,” Schnappenhocker said. “Another six months of absolute rest and quiet ought to do it for you. Maybe eight. You owe it to Emily, you know. And to yourself.” He reached for the telephone.
Dr. Departure was prepared for this. Wild lights shining from his eyes—or what he hoped were wild lights—he leaped from the chair, seized the copper letter opener and leaned across the desk, breathing hard.
“Are you going to cast that spell or aren’t you?” he shouted, digging the opener into the mahogany desk top.
Dr. Schnappenhocker blinked apprehensively.
“Sure, Manly! Sure!” he placated. “I’ll cast the spell, then I’ll make your reservation.” He picked up the box of powder and glanced nervously at the slip of paper.
“EEDO! QUEEDO! SKIZZO LIBIDO!”
With a zip-snick-snap!, Dr. Departure peeled off the glove from the left hand. Then, as he fumbled with the right hand, an agonizing decision suddenly leaped out at him; should he make a shoplifter out of his brother-in-law, or a shopdropper? Should he leave the gloves right side out or wrong side out? Each alternative offered such dazzling possibilities that, for a moment, Dr. Departure felt himself almost torn in two by the exquisite but mutually exclusive choices. Then, the answer came to him…what if he left one glove right side out and the other wrong side out…?
* * * *
“Why, Bert!” Mrs. Departure said, opening the door to her brother, Dr. Schnappenhocker’s, a week later. “Come on in!”
“I can’t,” Dr. Schnappenhocker replied, handing her a cardboard carton filled with assorted articles. “Just thought I’d drop these off. They’re a few more things Manly deposited in my office when he was…well, before I cured him.”
Mrs. Departure took the carton.
“I must say you’re a miracle man, Bert. Just one treatment, and now he’s as fit as a fiddle.”
“It was nothing,” Schnappenhocker said, backing down the steps nervously. There was a tenseness about his eyes and he kept jerking at the ends of his fingers.
Mrs. Departure closed the door and returned to the dining room, where her husband was wolfing down a tremendous dinner.
“That was Bert,” she explained. “With another carton of junk. You know, I’m worried about the man. He keeps bringing all this stuff over here, insisting it’s yours, but it all belongs to him! Here’s his fountain pen, his copper letter opener, even his appointment book! And what makes it even stranger,” she went on, shaking her head, “every time he deposits a load, he manages to sneak off with an armful of our stuff!”
She went to the window and peeked through the Venetian blinds. “Look at him out there! Unscrewing the nozzle of the hose! Why, the man’s turning into a human pack rat!”
“Probably been working too hard on that speech,” Dr. Departure said, beaming and helping himself to another pork chop. “Always knew Schnappenhocker would crack up someday.”
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