I went to the Little Red Doctor and told him that very thing. To this day I believe that my age alone saved me from a murderous assault. “Have it fixed?” howled the Little Red Doctor. “Don't you suppose I want to have it fixed? Don't be an imbecile, dominie.”
“Then come along now to Doc Selters and get it filled.”
“I don't want it filled. I want it pulled. I want to get it out and stamp on it!”
“Well, he will pull it.”
“He will not. He says it's got to be saved. He's killing the nerve—on the Spanish Inquisition principle. I'd go to the fifty cent yankers this minute if I didn't have a saw-off with Selters.”
“A what?”
“A saw-off. A professional exchange. He owes me two liver-attacks and a diffuse laryngitis; and the best he'll do,” cried the Little Red Doctor, dancing with rage and pain, “is to say that the worst of it is over. D——n his eyes!”
Plainly, the Bonnie Lassie was right. The Little Red Doctor was in no state to meet vital issues. I went over to Dead-Men's-Shoes' place, and there beheld the brown-and-gold fairy skillfully sewing trouser buttons on waistcoats. She looked tired and pathetic, and when she saw me she jumped up and ran to me.
“Oh, Mr. Dominie!” she cried. “Where is he?”
I shook my head. Somehow I hadn't the heart to obtrude as unpoetic a motif as a toothache upon that prospective romance.