"Yes, you have actually trumped my trick," added Valero, in distress.
Seeing himself thus taken to task, the count looked as confused as if his companions had read his thoughts.
"Nothing particular is the matter with me," he replied; and taking refuge in an innocent excuse, he added, "I am only suffering from toothache."
"So the poor fellow is ill!" said Valero.
Whereupon they all began pitying him, and asking him particulars about his complaint.
The count being now at his wit's end, answered the questions at random.
"Well, for that pain, Señor Conde," said Saleta, "there is no finer remedy than iron. You will find that it is so. When I was a student I suffered dreadfully from my teeth. I never dared have one drawn, but the landlord I had in Santiago told me the best thing to do was to take a thread, and tie one end to the tooth, and the other to the back of the chair, so that it was gradually drawn out without any pain. I sat myself in a chair, and when the tooth was well tied I got up from the chair and left it hanging behind me. You see I had nothing to do but jump up."
Valero shook his head in despair, and the others looked at him and smiled. But Saleta did not notice, or pretended not to notice it, and continued his story in the quiet matter-of-fact way and the strong Galician accent peculiar to him.
"Afterwards I quite overcame my fear of tooth-drawing. The dentist of Corunna extracted five, one after the other; and when I was judge at Allariz I was in dreadful pain, and as there was no dentist the Promotor[G] pulled out three for me with his wife's curling tongs; but do you know this gave me inflammation of the mouth? I was then at Madrid, and Ludovisi, the queen's dentist, burnt my gums with a red-hot iron, and then extracted seven good teeth."
"There went fifteen!" murmured Valero.