“Hey, you! did you expectorate?”
I was on my feet in an instant. “Why, you little insignificant, illiterate collector of plugged coins and dispenser of pennies!” I cried. “What do you mean by insulting me before this car full of people? Yes,” I said, “I did expect a rate, but that’s my affair. It’s none of your confounded business, nor anyone else’s, if I expect a pass! What I expect and what I don’t expect concern me alone!”
“O, is that so?” he sneered. “You’re going to bluff me—that’s what you expect. Now here’s what you don’t expect”—and he called a policeman and had me arrested for spitting on the floor of the car.
Did you ever have the toothache? My! but isn’t it a great thing to make you forget all your other troubles? I had the toothache the other night, and it nearly had me wild. I wouldn’t have minded being awakened by the tooth so much, but it was the nerve of the thing that struck me—and it struck me properly.
I jumped up, dressed myself and dashed over to the dentist’s. I said: “Doc, you argue with it, will you—you’ve got more of a pull than I have.”
Dashed over to the dentist’s
Then after he had it out he showed it to me, and I was surprised to think that such a tiny thing could make a person act so foolishly.