"I wanted you to charm her, Doctor."
"But my dear fellow, I'm not an Eskimo medicine-man. I don't know how, and I don't believe in it anyway."
Mr. Fisherman looked very much put out. "I knows why youse won't charm un. It's because I'm a Roman Catholic."
"Nonsense. That wouldn't make the slightest difference. But if you really think it would do any good,—come on, I'll try. Only—you'll have to pay twenty-five cents, just as though I had 'hauled' it."
"That I will, Doctor, and glad to do it. Go ahead!"
He perched on the rail like a great sea-bird. The Doctor to carry out the farce put his finger in the gaping mouth and touched the tooth. While he kept his finger in place he uttered the solemn words:
"Abracadabra Tiddlywinkum Umslopoga."
That last word must have come from a hazy memory of the name of the wonderful big black man in H. Rider Haggard's "Alan Quatermain," who after a long, hard run beside a horse that carries his master, defends a stairway against their enemies and splits a magic stone with an axe and so brings the foe to grief.
At any rate, the combination worked. Grenfell pulled out his finger quickly so that his patient wouldn't bite him.
The fisherman got up in silence. Then he slowly made the circuit of the deck. In the course of the brief journey, he thrust his hand deep into his jeans and pulled out a quarter.