years he was in position to bite back.

And that's how it is with teeth--with your teeth let us say--for
right here I'm going to drop the personal pronoun and speak of
them as your teeth from now on. If anybody has to suffer it might
as well be you and not me; I expect to be busy telling about it.
As I started to say awhile ago, you--remember it's you from this
point--you get your regular teeth and they start right in giving
you trouble. Every little while one of them bursts from its cell
with a horrible yell and in the lulls between pangs you go forth
among men with the haunted look in your eye of one who is listening
for the footfalls of a dread apparition, and one half of your head
is puffed out of plumb as though you were engaged in the whimsical
idea of holding an egg plant in the side of your jaw. A kind
friend meets you, and, speaking with that high courage and that
lofty spirit of sacrifice which a kind friend always exhibits when
it's your tooth that is kicking up the rumpus and not his, he
tells you you ought to have something done for it right away. You
know that as well as he does, but you hate to have the subject
brought up. It's your toothache anyhow. It originated with you.
You are its proud parent but not so awfully proud at that. Mother
and child doing as well as could be expected, but not expected to
do very well.

But these friends of yours keep on shoving their free advice on
you and the tooth keeps on getting worse and worse until the pain
spreads all through the First Ward and finally you grab your
resolution in both hands to keep it from leaking out between your
fingers and you go to the dentist's.