"Have you ever taken gas?" I asked.
"Oh, certainly," he answered, "it's nothing, nothing at all."
Altogether I asked about fifty people that day about gas, and they all said that it was absolutely nothing. When I said that I was to take it to-morrow, they showed no concern whatever. I looked in their faces for traces of anxiety. There weren't any. They all said that it wouldn't hurt me, that it was nothing.
So then I was glad because I knew that gas was nothing.
It began to seem hardly worth while to keep the appointment. Why go all the way downtown for such a mere nothing?
But I did go.
I kept the appointment.
What followed was such an absolute nothing that I shouldn't bother to relate it except for the sake of my friends.
The dentist was there with two assistants. All three had white coats on, as rigid as naval uniforms.
I forget whether they carried revolvers.