depicting a prominent ivory-hunter with every Christmas number, there is, I
am told, no violent demand for it outside the Profession.

This is not to be wondered at. A man who spends his life climbing into
people's mouths and playing "The Anvil Chorus" on their molars with a
monkey-wrench, who says, "Now this won't hurt you in the least," and then
deals one a smart rap on a nerve with a pickaxe--such a man cannot expect
to be popular. He must console himself with his fees.

I do not love dentists, I repeat, but I am also not infatuated with
toothache. It is not that I am a coward. Far from it. Arterial sclerosis,
glycosuria, follicular tonsillitis and, above all, sleeping sickness I can
bear with fortitude--that is, I feel sure I could--but toothache, no! I am
not ashamed of it. Every brave man has at least one weakness. Lord
ROBERTS'S was cats. Achilles' was tendons. Mine is toothache (Biographers,
please note). When my jaw annoys me I try to propitiate it with libations
of whisky, brandy, iodine, horse-blister and patent panaceas I buy from
sombreroed magicians in the Strand. If these fail I totter round to the
dentist, ring the bell and run away. If the maid catches me before I can
escape and turns me into the waiting-room I examine the stuffed birds and
photographs of Brighton Pier until she has departed, then slither quietly
down the banisters, open the street door and gallop. If I am pushed
directly into the _abattoir_ I shake the dentist warmly by the hand, ask
after his wife and children, his grandfather and great-aunt, and tell him I
have only dropped in to tune the piano. If that is no good I try to make an
appointment for an afternoon this year, next year, some time, never. If
that too is useless and he insists on putting me through it there and then,
I take every anodyne he's got--cocaine, morphia, chloroform, ether, gas,
also a couple of anæsthetists to hold my hand when I go off and kiss me
when I come round again.