“A mad tooth! Poor fellow!—we call that toothache where I come from.”
“What care I whether you call it mad tooth or tootik?” cried Ippegoo petulantly. “It is horrible! dreadful! awful!—like fire and fury in the heart.”
The sufferer used one or two more Eskimo expressions, suggestive of excruciating agony, which are not translatable into English.
“If I only had a pair of pincers, but—look, Ippe, look,” said Rooney, pointing to the sea, in the hope of distracting his mind from present pain by referring to threatening danger; “look—our kayaks being lost, we have no hope of escaping, so we must starve.”
His little device, well-meant though it was, failed. A groan and glance of indifference was the Eskimo’s reply, for starvation and danger were familiar and prospective evils, whereas toothache was a present horror.
We fear it must be told of Ippegoo that he was not celebrated for endurance of pain, and that, being fond of sympathy, he was apt to give full vent to his feelings—the result, perhaps, of having an over-indulgent mother. Toothache—one of the diseases to which Greenlanders are peculiarly liable—invariably drew forth Ippegoo’s tenderest feelings for himself, accompanied by touching lamentations.
“Come, Ippe, be more of a man. Even your mother would scold you for groaning like that.”
“But it is so shriekingly bad!” returned the afflicted youth, with increasing petulance.
“Of course it is. I know that; poor fellow! But come, I will try to cure you,” said Rooney, who, under the impression that violent physical exertion coupled with distraction of mind would produce good effect, had suddenly conceived a simple ruse. “Do you see yon jutting ice-cliff that runs down to a point near the edge of the berg?”
“Yes, I see,” whimpered Ippegoo.