"Go—goo—good Lord-d d! Ho—ho—hol—hold on!" "O, yeez needn't be afear'd of that—I'm howldin' yeez tight as a divil!"—[Page 92.]
"Let me—me—O—O—O! Everlasting creation! let me go-o-o—stop, hold on-n-n!" as the Doctor bored, screwed, and plugged away at the tooth.
"All done, sir; let the patient up, Michael," says the Doctor, with a confident twirl of his perfumed handkerchief. "There, sir—there was science, art, elegance, and dispatch! Now, sir, your tooth is safe—your life is safe—you're a sound man!"
"Sound?" echoes poor Bill, "sound? Why, you've broken my jaw into flinders; you've set all my teeth on edge; and I've no more feelin'—gall darn ye!—in my jaws, than if they were iron steel-traps! You've got the wuth of your money out of my mouth, and I'm off!"
That night was one of anxiety and misery to William Whiffletree. The disturbed molar growled and twitched like mad; and, by daylight, poor Bill's cheek was swollen up equal to a printer's buff-ball, his mouth puckered, and his right eye half "bunged up."
"Why, William," says Ethan Rakestraw, as Bill went into the store, "what in grace ails thy face? Thee looks like an owl in an ivy-bush!"
"Been plugged and filed," says Bill, looking cross as a meat-axe at his snickering Orthodox boss.
"Plugged and fined? Thee hain't been fighting, William?"
"Fined? No, I ain't been fined or fighting, Mr. Rakestraw, but I bet I do fight that feller who gave me the tooth-ache!—O! O!" moaned poor Bill, as he clamped his swollen jaw with his hand, and went around waving his head like a plaster-of-paris mandarin.
"O! thee's been to the dentist, eh? Got the tooth-ache? Go thee to my wife; she'll cure thee in one minute, William; a little laudanum and cotton will soon ease thy pain."