"Bam a red-hot skewer into it."
"No, no; let it alone, and it'll go away."
Such was the advice tendered, and much more of a similar nature, to the suffering man.
"There's nothink like 'ot water an' cold," said Joe Dumsby in the tones of an oracle. "Just fill your mouth with bilin' 'ot water, an' dip your face in a basin o' cold, and it's sartain to cure."
"Or kill," suggested Jamie Dove.
"It's better now," said Forsyth, with a sigh of relief. "I scrunched a bit o' bone into it; that was all."
"There's nothing like the string and the red-hot poker," suggested Ruby Brand. "Tie the one end o' the string to a post and t'other end to the tooth, an' stick a red-hot poker to your nose. Away it comes at once."
"Hoot! nonsense," said Watt. "Ye might as weel tie a string to his lug an' dip him into the sea. Tak' my word for't, there's naethin' like pooin'."
"D'you mean pooh pooin'?" enquired Dumsby. Watt's reply was interrupted by a loud gust of wind, which burst upon the beacon house at that moment and shook it violently.
Everyone started up, and all clustered round the door and windows to observe the appearance of things without. Every object was shrouded in thick darkness, but a flash of lightning revealed the approach of the storm which had been predicted, and which had already commenced to blow.