“Stuff and nonsense, my good fellow! There is nothing the matter with your tooth. Your nerves are upset after a hard day’s work, that’s all.”
Having decided this to your satisfaction, you slyly, and with a poor attempt at being casual, slide the tongue back along the line of adjacent teeth, hoping against hope that it will reach the end without mishap.
But there it is! There can be no doubt about it this time. The tooth simply has got to be filled by someone, and the only person who can fill it with anything permanent is a dentist. You wonder if you might not be able to patch it up yourself for the time being,—a year or so—perhaps with a little spruce-gum and a coating of new-skin. It is fairly far back, and wouldn’t have to be a very sightly job.
But this has an impracticable sound, even to you. You might want to eat some peanut-brittle (you never can tell when someone might offer you peanut-brittle these days), and the new-skin, while serviceable enough in the case of cream soups and custards, couldn’t be expected to stand up under heavy crunching.
So you admit that, since the thing has got to be filled, it might as well be a dentist who does the job.
This much decided, all that is necessary is to call him up and make an appointment.
Let us say that this resolve is made on Tuesday. That afternoon you start to look up the dentist’s number in the telephone-book. A great wave of relief sweeps over you when you discover that it isn’t there. How can you be expected to make an appointment with a man who hasn’t got a telephone? And how can you have a tooth filled without making an appointment? The whole thing is impossible, and that’s all there is to it. God knows you did your best.
On Wednesday there is a slightly more insistent twinge, owing to bad management of a sip of ice water. You decide that you simply must get in touch with that dentist when you get back from lunch. But you know how those things are. First one thing and then another came up, and a man came in from Providence who had to be shown around the office, and by the time you had a minute to yourself it was five o’clock. And, anyway, the tooth didn’t bother you again. You wouldn’t be surprised if, by being careful, you could get along with it as it is until the end of the week when you will have more time. A man has to think of his business, after all, and what is a little personal discomfort in the shape of an unfilled tooth to the satisfaction of work well done in the office?
