extra roots and we spend a good part of our lives and most of our
substance with the dentist. Nevertheless, in spite of all we can
do and all he can do, we keep on losing them. And after awhile,
they are all gone and our face folds up on us like a crush hat or
a concertina and from our brow to our chin we don't look much more
than a third as long as we used to look. We dislike this
folded-up appearance naturally--who wouldn't? And we get tired of
living on spoon victuals and the memory of past beef-steaks. So
we go and get some false ones made. They have to be made to order;
there appears to be no market for custom made teeth; you never
see any hand-me-down teeth advertised, guaranteed to fit any face
and withstand a damp climate. Getting them made to order is a
long and unhappy process and I will pass over it briefly. Having
got them, we find that they do not fit us or that we do not fit
them, which comes to the same thing. The dentist makes them fit
by altering us some and the teeth some, and after some months they
quit feeling as though they didn't belong to us but had been
borrowed temporarily from somebody's loan collection of ceramics.

But just about the time they are becoming acclimated and we are
getting used to them, the interior of our mouth for private reasons
best known to itself changes around materially and we either have
to go back and start all over and go through the whole thing again,
or else haply we die and pass on to the bourne from which no
traveller returneth either with his teeth or without them. If
Shakespeare had only thought of it--and he did think of a number
of things from time to time--he might have divided his Seven Ages
of Man much better by making them the Seven Ages of Teeth as
follows: First age--no tooth; second age--milk teeth; third age--
losing 'em; fourth age--getting more teeth; fifth age--losing 'em;