"Is there another tooth under it? then extract this one and give the other a fair chance."
"It would be a lot of trouble," he kept on, without specially replying to my remark.
"Perhaps so; when one comes to think of it, teeth, I suppose, are not filled without some exercise on the part of the dentist."
"I wouldn't think of touching that tooth for less than a guinea; why it would take at least an hour to do it."
"This is the first intimation I've had that dentists calculated to mend teeth without spending any time on them," I said.
Mr Messre didn't seem to grasp the drift of my remarks, and as I felt unequal to maintaining the conversation for a more extended period, I announced my intention of thinking about what he had said. He said it would be as well, and I emerged to find Ernest had so far progressed as to be seated in the sulky holding my parasol over Dawn.
Youth and beauty is privileged to command an athlete to hold its sunshade, while old age has difficulty in finding so much as a small boy to carry its basket across the street. Mayhap this is why it is largely the elderly and frequently the unattractive people who fight for honest rights for their class and sex, while it is from pretty young women's lips issues most of the silly rubbish anent it being entirely women's fault that men will not conform to their "influence" in all matters. Only a very small percentage can regard conditions from any but a selfish point of view or conceive of any but their own shoe-pinch.
"I happened to see Miss Dawn here and waited to ask you how you are," said Ernest.
"Just what you should have done," I replied; "and now if you can wait till I investigate another dentist I want your opinion on a purchase I am making."
"Oh, certainly," he hastened to reply; "I'm doing a loaf this afternoon. I thought I heard my oar crack this morning, so came for some leather to tack round it."