"Hmm?"said Walter Mitty.He looked at his wife,in the seat beside him,with shocked astonishment.She seemed grossly unfamiliar,like a strange woman who had yelled at him in a crowd."You were up to fifty-five,"she said."You know I don't like to go more than forty.You were up to fifty-five."Walter Mitty drove on toward Waterbury in silence,the roaring of the SN202 through the worst storm in twenty years of Navy flying fading in the remote,intimate airways of his mind.
"You're tensed up again,"said Mrs.Mitty."It's one of your days.I wish you'd let Dr.Renshaw look you over."
Walter Mitty stopped the car in front of the building where his wife went to have her hair done."Remember to get those overshoes while I'm having my hair done,"she said."I don't need overshoes,"said Mitty.She put her mirror back into her bag."We've been all through that,"she said,getting out of the car."You're not a young man any longer."He raced the engine a little."Why don't you wear your gloves?Have you lost your gloves?"Walter Mitty reached in a pocket and brought out the gloves.He put them on,but after she had turned and gone into the building and he had driven on to a red light,he took them off again."Pick it up,brother!"snapped a cop as the light changed,and Mitty hastily pulled on his gloves and lurched ahead.He drove around the streets aimlessly for a time,and then he drove past the hospital on his way to the parking lot.
..."It's the millionaire banker,Wellington McMillan,"said the pretty nurse."Yes?"said Walter Mitty,removing his gloves slowly."Who has the case?""Dr.Renshaw and Dr.Benbow,but there are two specialists here,Dr.Remington from New York and Mr.Pritchard-Mitford from London.He flew over."A door opened down a long,cool corridor and Dr.Renshaw came out.He looked distraught and haggard."Hello,Mitty,"he said."We're having the devil's own time with McMillan,the millionaire banker and close personal friend of Roosevelt.Obstreosis of the ductal tract.Tertiary.Wish you'd take a look at him"."Glad to,"said Mitty.
In the operating room there were whispered introductions:"Dr.Remington,Dr.Mitty.Mr.Pritchard-Mitford,Dr.Mitty.""I've read your book on streptothricosis,"said Pritchard-Mitford,shaking hands."A brilliant performance,sir.""Thank you,"said Walter Mitty."Didn't know you were in the States,Mitty,"grumbled Remington."Coals to Newcastle,bringing Mitford and me up here for a tertiary.""You are very kind,"said Mitty.A huge,complicated machine,connected to the operating table,with many tubes and wires,began at this moment to go pocketa-pocketa-pocketa."The new anesthetizer is giving way!"shouted an intern."There is no one in the East who knows how to fix it!""Quiet,man!"said Mitty,in a low,cool voice.He sprang to the machine,which was going pocketa-pocketa-queep-pocketa-queep.He began fingering delicately a row of glistening dials."Give me a fountain pen!"he snapped.Someone handed him a fountain pen.He pulled a faulty piston out of the machine and inserted the pen in its place."That will hold for ten minutes,"he said."Get on with the operation."A nurse hurried over and whispered to Renshaw,and Mitty saw the man turn pale."Coreopsis has set in,"said Renshaw nervously."If you would take over,Mitty?"Mitty looked at him and at the craven figure of Benbow,who drank,and at the grave,uncertain faces of the two great specialists."If you wish,"he said.They slipped a white gown on him;he adjusted a mask and drew on thin gloves;nurses handed him shining...
"Back it up,Mac!Look out for that Buick!"Walter Mitty jammed on the brakes."Wrong lane,Mac,"said the parking-lot attendant,looking at Mitty closely."Gee.Yeh,"muttered Mitty.He began cautiously to back out of the lane marked"Exit Only"."Leave her sit there,"said the attendant."I'll put her away."Mitty got out of the car."Hey,better leave the key.""Oh,"said Mitty,handing the man the ignition key.The attendant vaulted into the car,backed it up with insolent skill,and put it where it belonged.
They're so damn cocky,thought Walter Mitty,walking along Main Street;they think they know everything.Once he had tried to take his chains off,outside New Milford,and he had got them wound around the axles.A man had had to come out in a wrecking car and unwind them,a young,grinning garageman.Since then Mrs.Mitty always made him drive to the garage to have the chains taken off.The next time,he thought,I'll wear my right arm in a sling;they won't grin at me then.I'll have my right arm in a sling and they'll see I couldn't possibly take the chains off myself.He kicked at the slush on the sidewalk."Overshoes,"he said to himself,and he began looking for a shoe store.
When he came out into the street again,with the overshoes in a box under his arm,Walter Mitty began to wonder what the other thing was his wife had told him to get.She had told him,twice,before they set out from their house for Waterbury.In a way he hated these weekly trips to town—he was always getting something wrong.Kleenex,he thought,Squibb's,razor blades?No.Toothpaste,toothbrush,bicarbonate,cardorundum,initiative and referendum?He gave it up.But she would remember it."Where's the what's-its-name,"she would ask."Don't tell me you forgot the what's-its-name."A newsboy went by shouting something about the Waterbury trial.
