He Needn't Hare Troubled How He Looked.
He was suffering the worst of torments ; that is, he was in the dentist's chair, with a horrid rubber apparatus between his teeth to keep his mouth open. He looked— well, you know what a perfect object one looks in a dentist's chair.
Just then she came in. She was only 17— young enough to giggle excusably— and she was very pretty. She wore a grey gown, with hat to match ; and from the tips of the ribbon bow on her turban to the toes of her patent-leather boots she was bewitching. . She was tall and slender, with roguish blue eyes and yellow hair, and a complexion like a wild rose. And her ears! Ah! those pretty pink ears— so alive to every sound ! He was neither too young nor too old to be susceptible to the charms of a pretty girl. That might make him anywhere from 18 to 80, you know. These sweeping statements are better than more exact facts sometimes — it gets more people in sympathy with one's hero. And when I add that this man was neither too tall nor too short; neither too thin nor too ■tout, and that he had a face which many would call handsome, I am sure that some will follow my tale with interest. The man in the chair saw the flutter of a grey gown, and he grew damp with perspiration. The agony of the dental operation was over for a time, and the dentist had gone into another room — bnt this — this was worse. He tried to remember if he had groaned. He believed that he had. Perhaps he had even yelled. What grimaces he must have made too ! He recollected that the dentist had asked him if he ever had witnessed an Indian war dance. What had suggested such a thing to the mind of the dentist unless he had yelled and cut capers like an Indian ? And now he sat with the cold chills running over him as he thought what a fool he must look. Good gracious ! What would she think ? And she was so pretty. Then he grew wroth. What business had a dentist to put his chair in such a place, and leave him sitting there with his mouth wide open and filled with india-rubber ? It was an outrage. It was monstrous ! All of this the man muttered through his teeth as he eyed the corner of the grey gown. And the girl ? That's what I'm coming to. Bhe came into the next room and picked up a book which she had left there, then she turned and went out without so much as glancing his way, and she never knew that the man was there. Romantic, wasn't it ?
He Needn't Hare Troubled How He Looked.
Otago Witness, Issue 1994, 12 May 1892, Page 46
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