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sun. "Are you well, Bill?" she inquired anxiously. "You gave some great,
convulsive thrashes in your sleep."
"I will give it back!" I said, as I had when I lay entombed, even if only
within the bounds of my own mind. Helen laughed, reckoning me as any
reasonable person might still half swaddled in my slumbers. Yet never in all
my days was I more sincere, more intent, more determined.
As soon as I thought there was any probability, no matter how remote, of
bearding the illustrious
Vankirk in his den, I hurried thither as fast as shank's mare would carry me.
Finding him there a commendation to his diligence, a trait of character
frequently allied to skill I was so rude as to seize him by the lapels, at the
same time crying, "Take it out! Take from my jaw this ghastly, ghostly
fragment, untimely ripped from the maxilla of a man who, even from beyond the
grave, has made it all too plain he desires no, requires a reunion of his
disiuncta membra
."
"My dear Legrand!" quoth Vankirk. "You desire me to remove the bicuspid I
successfully indeed, all but miraculously transplanted to your jaw? What
madness do you speak, sir?"
"If miracle this be, never let me see another," I replied. "A miracle is said
to be a happening for the good, but no good has come to me of this. On the
contrary; never have I known such nightmares, which word you may construe
either metaphorically or literally, as best suits you." I spent the next
little while explaining all that had eventuated since that tooth's taking
residence in my head, and finished, "This being so, I implore you to get it
hence; get it hence forthwith. I have returned to you because of your
knowledge of chloroform and skill with the anaesthetic drug, yet were you to
tell me you needs must extract this accursed bicuspid with no such alleviating
anodyne, I should not hesitate in begging you to proceed."
"You are in earnest," Vankirk observed, and my answering nod, I dare say,
closely approximated to that of a madman in its vehemence. He was for some
time silent, examining me closely. "To eschew the use of chloroform in an
extraction would show a beastly and barbarous cruelty to which no man aspiring
to the merciful calling of dentistry should sink," he declared. "Come; seat
yourself in my chair. I shall do as you wish, and charge not a penny for it;
never let it be said I leave those seeking my services unsatisfied in any
way."
I seized his hand. "God bless you," I said fervently, and of my own free will
placed myself in the seat in whose counterparts I had undergone so many
exquisite excruciations. As he took the bottle of liquid
Lethe from its repository, I held up one finger. "A moment, if you please."
"Yes? What do you require now?"
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"Have you any notion, any true notion, of the provenance of this tooth? The
more precisely you can return it, once drawn, to its former and even now
rightful owner, the better, I think, for everyone."
"I know from whom I bought it," Vankirk answered, "and have a good notion of
the haunts she frequents. I can, I believe, make nearly certain to deliver it
to the proper cemetery or, I should say, paupers' graveyard. Will that suffice
you?"
Although staggered at the notion that the person who took the tooth which had
so tormented me from the reeking jaw of some dull-eyed, swollen corpse could
possibly belong to the fair sex, I nodded once more. "You must do that very
thing," I said. "You must swear by whatever you hold most dear and holy
that you will do it; else I cannot answer for the consequences, either to you
or to myself."
"By my mother's grave, Mr. Legrand a fitting oath here, in my opinion I shall
do what you require of me," Vankirk said. The solemnity with which he spoke
not failing to impress me, I lowered my head in agreement, as Jove is said to
have done in days of yore. He commenced to removed the stopper from the jar of
chloroform, but then, arresting the motion, sent my way a glance instinct with
curiosity. "I trust I
do infer correctly that you would have me extract the offending bicuspid the
suppositiously offending bicuspid without attempting to implant in your
maxilla another intended to replace it?"
"Not for all the gold in California, not for all the cotton in Alabama, not
for all the swindlers in New York
City would I ever again have some other man's dental apparatus rooted in my
own jaw. This being so, yes, sir, your inference is accurate."
"Very well. You must be aware, your bite will suffer."
"Worse things than my bite will suffer should you disregard my wishes here. Go
on, man; go on."
Bowing courteously, he said, "I obey," and did at last expose to the open air [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]