The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis Read online

  Professor Snaith entered the room, mounted to the lectern. I raised my hand. “Well?” he said curtly.

  I stood up. I smiled at him. I turned and smiled at the class. I turned back to the professor. “Sir,” I said, loud and clear, “I would like to quote a number of examples of incorrect usage, all of them taken from your textbook.” I rattled off the ten sentences. “All of these, according to you, are incorrect.”

  “Of course,” he snapped. “Sit down.”

  “In a moment, sir, in a moment. I would first like to say that all of the sentences I just quoted are correct.”

  He started changing color. “Who says so?” he sputtered.

  I pulled the list out of my pocket and unfolded it with a flourish. “The following persons: Professor Jason B. Abernathy, B.A., M.A., Ph.D.; Professor Martha Braun, B.A., M.S., L.L.D.; Professor Charles O. Chevins, B.S., J.D., M.D.—” And so on through Professor Erich Zwingli, B.A., M.A., Lit.D.

  The class was tittering openly, and I gave them a good-natured wave in acknowledgment. “Well, Professor Snaith,” I said, examining my fingernails nonchalantly, “what do you say now?”

  “Two things,” he thundered. “First, this university is staffed with grammatical idiots. Second, owing to your insufferable insolence, you have just flunked freshman English.… Class dismissed.”

  With a final murderous look at me he swept out of the room.

  I felt like a man who has just made a spectacular swan dive into an empty pool. I was mangled, crushed, pulverized. I shambled, unseeing, from the classroom and into the street outside. I was about to be run down by several automobiles when Poppy grabbed my arm and yanked me back. “Why didn’t you let them kill me?” I asked reproachfully.

  “Come on,” she said.

  Unfeeling, uncaring, I let myself be dragged away. She took me to my convertible, opened the right-hand door, shoved me in, got behind the wheel herself, and drove off. “We’re going to a used-car lot and sell your car,” she announced.

  “I don’t care,” I mumbled dully. “Nothing matters any more.”

  She drove into The Smiling Latvian’s used car emporium. The proprietor ran toward us with a cheery Baltic greeting. Poppy waved aside his amenities and proceeded to haggle. I sagged against the cushions, not listening, enveloped in misery. At length Poppy reached an agreement with the amiable Slav. A pen was thrust in my hand and I was told to sign some documents. This I did as if in a dream. Then The Smiling Latvian handed me a sheaf of currency which Poppy immediately appropriated, and we walked away.

  “Now we’ll get the books,” she said, rubbing her hands briskly.

  “I’m going home to bed,” I muttered and walked off before she could prevent me.

  When I dragged my febrile carcass into the men’s dormitory, I found Professor Snaith waiting for me in the lobby. I shrank against the wall, my mouth working in terror. What did he want now—to squirt acid in my eyes?

  But his expression was friendly, even shyy. He came toward me with his right hand outstretched. “Mr. Gillis, I’ve come to apologize. I behaved abominably in class today. You were right, of course. You’ve been right all along.”

  “Huh?” I squeaked.

  He smiled wryly. “I’ve known it for a long time, but I’ve just refused to face it. You know, it’s a great deal of work to revise a book like mine, and I’m not a young man any longer. I guess that’s why I was so upset this morning in class. You proved what I have been dreading for so long: I must revise my book.”

  “Am I dreaming?” I said in wonder.

  “No,” he chuckled, “it is I who have been dreaming. The world has passed me by. But you have wakened me, Mr. Gillis, and at last I am going to face reality. I can shirk my task no longer. I’ll start work at once. Next fall there will be a revised edition of Snaith’s English Usage.”

  “Well,” I said, feeling lighter by the second. “Well, well, well.”

  “I wonder, Mr. Gillis,” he said, averting his eyes, “if you would permit me to dedicate the new edition to you?”

  “Of course,” I replied, giggling wildly. “Sure. You bet. By all means.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Gillis. You’re very kind.”

  “Nothing,” I said with an airy wave of my hand.

  “And, of course, you will not flunk English this semester. I am giving you an A.”

  I remembered that I had not yet shaken his hand. I shook it.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Gillis. I hope you’ll drop over for tea sometime.”

  “Love to,” I cried, and when he had gone I ran three times around the room. Or perhaps it was thirty-three times. I was much too happy to count.

  Then I went out to tell Poppy. Finding her took several hours, but my elation was solid enough to weather the long search. I was still vibrating with joy when I finally came upon her. I seized her in my arms, gave her a thumping kiss, and whirled her high into the air. “Poppy,” I declared, “I am the happiest man in the world!”

  “You should be,” she answered. “You’re going to make yourself a nice piece of change. I’ve got three hundred books all paid for and stored away till next fall.”

  I made an impatient gesture. “Never mind that. Let me tell you what happened. Professor Snaith apologized to me. He said I was right all the time. He’s giving me an A in English. And—get this, Poppy—he’s dedicating the new edition to me!”

  “The what?” she said sharply.

  “The new edition,” I answered. “Thanks to me, he’s going to revise his textbook. There’ll be a new edition in the fall.”

  Her jaw swung open. She turned a grisly off-white.

  “Poppy, what is it?” I asked in alarm.

  “Dope!” she screamed. “There’ll be a new edition in the fall. They won’t be using the old one. And we’re stuck with three hundred copies!”

  I am now a sophomore at the University of Minnesota. I am no longer keeping company with Poppy. Let me emphasize that I bear her no malice. In fact, I have a good deal of admiration for her. It was through her quick thinking that I got my convertible back. She remembered that I was only eighteen and that contracts made by minors are not binding. If I gave The Smiling Latvian his money back, he was required by law to return my car to me.

  Getting the money for The Smiling Latvian proved to be something of a problem, but Poppy solved that too. She sold our three hundred copies of Snaith’s English Usage to Hammersmith’s Bookstore. By making an awful row, she was able to get two-sixty apiece for them instead of two-fifty, so I didn’t lose any money on the deal.

  Grateful though I was to Poppy when it was all over, I still felt that it would be better to terminate our romance. And to tell the truth, she was pretty sick of me too. We parted good friends. She has since found another swain, this one more to her tastes. He is a chemistry student who is working on a formula to transmute the baser metals into gold.

  Nor am I loveless. When the new edition of Snaith’s English Usage appeared, dedicated to me, I became quite a celebrity among the campus literati. The campus literati, of course, include a number of girls, and they came flocking to me in droves. Girls of this nature, I must admit, are not noted for their physical excellence, but some are less repulsive than others. I picked for myself the least unattractive of the lot—a sensitive young poetess named Lorna McCaslon. We are very happy together. She isn’t much to look at, but what a soul! What a soul!

  You Think You Got Trouble?

  In 1799 a French archaeologist named Boussard, excavating near Rosetta, a city in Egypt, unearthed a slab of black stone, three and a half feet long and two and a half feet wide, upon which was inscribed a decree in honor of the Pharaoh, Ptolemy Epiphanes. One result of Boussard’s discovery was that my father hit me in the eye with a fried egg.

  The day I got hit in the eye with a fried egg dawned bright and clear. The sun shone, the sky was blue, the weather was balmy, birds sang. There was nothing in the air to augur an egg in the eye—or any of the other horrible events that befell me
on this day. I whistled as I showered and dressed. I picked up my book and, still whistling, went into the kitchen for breakfast.

  At the head of the table, refreshing himself with six fried eggs and a tower of toast, sat my father, Herman Gillis. He is a large, hulking man, customarily dressed in corduroy trousers and a leather jacket. His hair is black and abundant. Each eyebrow is the size of a mustache, and his mustache is the size of a beard. His color in repose is that of a polished winesap; when angered he turns the shade of an eggplant.

  My mother sat at the foot of the table. In appearance I favor my mother, she being, like me, blond, slender, and fair, though she, of course, is considerably older.

  “Good morning, Ma,” I said.

  “Good morning, Dobie,” she replied.

  “Good morning, Pa,” I said.

  “Nyaah,” he replied.

  I sat down, sipped my orange juice and opened my book on the table beside my plate. For a little while I read silently, then looked up and said, “Patah. Amon. Horus. Kem. Ket. Reshpu. Bes. Ra. Osiris. Sebek.”

  My father hit me in the eye with a fried egg.

  I did not cry out. I merely looked at him reproachfully with one eye while I swabbed the yolk out of the other.

  “Herman,” said my mother, “you shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Why,” said my father, “does he have to go to the university?”

  My father does not approve of my going to the university.

  “Leave him alone,” said my mother.

  “Why can’t he work in the store?” said my father.

  My father would prefer me to work in his store instead of going to the university.

  “Eat your eggs,” said my mother.

  “If he has to go to the university,” said my father, “why can’t he at least take law or medicine or something that makes a little sense? Why, for God’s sake, does he have to take Egyptology?”

  My father is at a loss to understand why I major in Egyptology.

  “You’re shouting,” said my mother.

  “All right, I won’t shout,” said my father. “I’ll talk nice and quiet. Am I shouting now?”

  “No,” my mother admitted.

  My father laid his hand on my arm—very gently. “Dobie,” he said, soft and pleasant, “please tell me why in the hell are you taking Egyptology.”

  “Pa, I’ve told you a million times.”

  “Tell me again. I’m a dumbbell. I’m just an ignorant grocer. Tell me again.”

  “Very well,” I sighed. “Egypt is the cradle of civilization.”

  “Uh huh,” said my father.

  “All of our arts and sciences began in Egypt—architecture, sculpture, painting, music, medicine, chemistry—anything you might name. Every pursuit of modern man had it origin in Egypt.”

  “That’s very nice,” said my father.

  “The history of Egypt is a glorious one, but much of it is still shrouded in mystery. Scholars did not have a key with which to decipher the ancient hieroglyphics until Boussard discovered the Rosetta stone in 1799. Since that time a great deal of work has been done.”

  “I am thrilled to hear this,” said my father.

  “But the work is only just beginning. There are still an untold number of papyri to be deciphered, tombs to be opened, pyramids to be explored. And that is why I study Egyptology—because someday I am going to Egypt and make great discoveries and all the scholars in the world will know my name.”

  “Who,” roared my father, pounding the table so hard that all our eggs turned over, “is gonna pay for this trip?”

  “Leave him alone,” said my mother.

  “Sure, leave him alone,” replied my father hotly. “Just leave him alone and keep shelling out money.”

  “I’ll pay you back someday,” I said.

  “How?” he asked. “By making a mummy out of me when I drop dead?”

  “That’s enough,” said my mother. “He’s trying to study. You know he’s got a final examination this morning.”

  “That reminds me, Pa,” I said. “You’ll have to take a streetcar to work. I need the car.”

  His eyes bulged. Strangling sounds came from his throat. He seemed unable to speak. “What?” he gasped at last. “My new Chevrolet? You want to take a car that I just bought yesterday?”

  “Give him the car,” said my mother.

  “I’ll give him a shot in the head!” shouted my father.

  “Give him the car,” my mother repeated wearily. “Do you want him to be late for his final examination?”

  Grumbling, he flung the keys down in front of me. “Listen, King Tut,” he said, waving a big, blunt forefinger under my nose, “if I find so much as a scratch on that car, I will pound you into the ground like a tent stake.”

  “I’ll be careful,” I promised.

  “You better be. And one more thing: as long as you got the car, you can make yourself a little useful. On the way back from school, stop at the commission house and pick up four cases of oranges, size 288, you hear?”

  “All right, Pa.”

  “And watch out you don’t scratch the car when you put the oranges in, you hear?”

  “Yes, Pa.”

  He handed me some money for the oranges. “Don’t drive fast. Don’t park too close to anybody. Don’t bring me home a scratched car, you hear?”

  “Eat your eggs,” said my mother.

  “Egyptologist,” mumbled my father. “Of all the crazy damn things to be.”

  “Cheer up,” said my mother. “It could be worse.”

  “What,” he demanded, “could be worse than an Egyptologist?”

  My mother thought for a minute. “A white slaver,” she said triumphantly.

  “Bah,” snarled my father, and leaving his eggs, he stormed out the back door.

  I finished my breakfast and went to my room to study. The scene in the kitchen had left me undisturbed; it was nothing compared to what used to happen. When I first started taking Egyptology, my mother and father both threw eggs at me. Now she had finally been won over to my side. It was only a matter of time before he, too, capitulated. In fact, he already had, only he wouldn’t admit it. He knew very well that he couldn’t talk me out of Egyptology. It was only habit that made him keep trying.

  I bore him no malice for his opposition. The poor man simply did not understand. He had worked hard all his life, poured all of his thoughts and energies into his wretched little store. How could he appreciate the glory that was Egypt? My heart went out to him. I longed to take his work-gnarled hand in mine and lead him among the splendors of the Nile—the silent Sphinxes, the brooding pyramids, the magnificent temples that were built when Abraham’s people were still a tribe of rude nomads. Someday we would sit, my father and I, and marvel together at an obelisk. It was my fondest hope.

  But first, of course, I had to become an Egyptologist, and that took a heap of work and study. My most immediate problem was to pass the examination that would be given at twelve noon. I sat in my room and studied furiously until ten o’clock. Then I got gingerly into my father’s new Chevrolet and started for the university.

  I had left myself plenty of time for the journey. My house was in Cherokee Heights, a low-rent district on the south side of St. Paul. The University of Minnesota was across the river in Minneapolis. It was an hour’s drive, or, driving slowly, an hour and a half. Not wishing my father to pound me into the ground like a tent stake, I intended to drive slowly. I expected to reach the campus at eleven-thirty, a half hour before the time of the examination. Under university rules the doors were locked at the beginning of a final exam and no late-comers were admitted; if you did not get there on time, you simply took a flunk. Only a doctor’s excuse or something equally impressive would persuade the authorities to let you take a make-up exam. All this, however, was of no concern to me. I had left myself ample time.

  I drove along at precisely twenty-five miles an hour. I kept a safe distance between myself and all other cars. I
obeyed all traffic signals. Every cell of my brain was concentrated on driving my father’s new car.… Well, perhaps not every cell. After all, I was on my way to an important exam, and I couldn’t put that entirely out of my mind.

  So, keeping an alert eye on the road, I ran over a few facts that might come up in the exam. “Aahames founded the Eighteenth Dynasty,” I recited to myself. “Nofertari was his queen. Their son Amenhotep built the great temple at Thebes. Thutmes I and Thutmes II carried on successful wars against Syria, Mesopotamia, and Babylon. Hashop, the sister of Thutmes II, made a sea voyage to Punt from which she brought back thirty-one incense trees all packed in tubs and ready for replanting in Egyptian soil.…” And reciting thus to myself, I ran into a lamp post.

  The right front fender folded back in neat pleats. I fought off a wave of faintness. “Don’t panic,” I told myself. “Don’t panic.” With admirable calm I surveyed my situation. Obviously the only thing to do was to get the car to a garage and have the fender fixed so that my father would never know about the accident. That meant, of course, that I would have to take a streetcar to the university. It was now a quarter to eleven. A streetcar ride to the university from my present location would take about an hour. I would get to the final exam in plenty of time. There was no cause for alarm.

  A half block down the street I spied a garage: FORMAN BROS.—BODY AND FENDER REPAIRS OUR SPECIALTY. Perfect! I drove my father’s wounded Chevrolet into the garage.

  A small grease-stained man was standing at a workbench poring over a parts catalogue. “How do you do?” I said with a pleasant smile. “I am Dobie Gillis and I have a repair job for you.”

  “Just a minute,” he said, not looking up. He peered closely at the parts catalogue, licked his thumb, turned a page, examined that for a while, licked his thumb again, turned another page.

  I glanced nervously at my watch. “Excuse me,” I said. I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

  “Can’t you see I’m on the phone?” he replied tartly.

  “Sorry,” I murmured, noticing for the first time that an uncradled telephone lay on the bench beside the catalogue.