"Gigantic!" shouted all, as the tooth made the circuit of the table.
The Major was delighted, and never remembered his tooth to have created such a sensation; and when at last it was returned to him, he turned it about in his own hand, and cast many fond glances at the monstrosity, before it was finally deposited in his waistcoat pocket. This was the most ridiculous part of the exhibition: to see a gentleman, with the use of his eyes, looking affectionately at a thumping horse's tooth, and believing it to be his own. Yet this was a key to the Major's whole character. A received opinion was with him unchangeable, no alteration of circumstances could shake it: it was his tooth. A belief or a doubt was equally sacred with him; and though his senses in the present case should have shown him it was a horse's tooth—no, it was a piece of himself—his own dear tooth.
After this party, the success which crowned his anecdote and its attendant relic made him fonder of showing it off; and many a day did Dick the Devil enjoy the astonishment of visitors as his father exhibited the enormous tooth as his own. Fonder and fonder grew the Major of his tooth and his story, until the unlucky day Edward O'Connor happened to be in the museum with a party of ladies, to whom the old gentleman was showing off his treasures with great effect and some pains; for the Major, like most old soldiers, was very attentive to the fair sex. At last the pet cabinet was opened, and out came the tooth. One universal exclamation of surprise arose on its appearance: "What a wonderful man the Major was to have such a tooth!" Just then, by an unlucky chance, Edward, who had not seen the Major produce the wonder from his cabinet, perceived the relic in the hand of one of the ladies at the extremity of the group, and, fancying it had dropped from the horse's head, he said—
"I suppose that is one of the teeth out of old Schomberg's skull."
The Major thought this an impertinent allusion to his political bias, and said, very sharply, "What do you mean by old Schomberg?"
"The horse's head, sir," replied Edward, pointing to the musical relic.
"It was of my tooth you spoke, sir, when you said 'old Schomberg,'" returned the Major, still more offended at what he considered Edward's evasion.
"I assure you," said Edward, with the strongest evidence of a desire to be reconciled in his voice and manner—"I assure you, sir, it was of this tooth I spoke;" and he held up the tooth the Major had produced as his own.
"I know it was, sir," said the Major, "and therefore I didn't relish your allusions to my tooth."
"Your tooth, sir?" exclaimed Edward, in surprise.