would be able to exist on the custom to be obtained in
Fitzgeorge-street. Mr. Sheldon may, perhaps, have pitched his tent
under the impression that wherever there was mankind there was likely
to be toothache, and that the healer of an ill so common to frail
humanity could scarcely fail to earn his bread, let him establish his
abode of horror where he might. For some time after his arrival people
watched him and wondered about him, and regarded him a little
suspiciously, in spite of the substantial clumsiness of his furniture
and the unwinking brightness of his windows. His neighbours asked one
another how long all that outward semblance of prosperity would last;
and there was sinister meaning in the question.

The Fitzgeorgians were not a little surprised, and were perhaps just a
little disappointed, on finding that the newly-established dentist did
manage to hold his ground somehow or other, and that the muslin
curtains were renewed again and again in all their spotless purity;
that the supplies of rotten-stone and oil, hearthstone and
house-flannel, were unfailing as a perennial spring; and that the
unsullied snow of Mr. Sheldon's shirt-fronts retained its primeval
whiteness. Wonderland suspicion gave place to a half-envious respect.
Whether much custom came to the dentist no one could decide. There is
no trade or profession in which the struggling man will not receive
some faint show of encouragement. Pedestrians of agonised aspect, with
handkerchiefs held convulsively before their mouths, were seen to rush
wildly towards the dentist's door, then pause for a moment, stricken by
a sudden terror, and anon feebly pull the handle of an inflexible bell.
Cabs had been heard to approach that fatal door--generally on wet days;
for there seems to be a kind of fitness in the choice of damp and
dismal weather for the extraction of teeth. Elderly ladies and
gentlemen had been known to come many times to the Fitzgeorgian
mansion. There was a legend of an old lady who had been seen to arrive
in a brougham, especially weird and nut-crackery of aspect, and to
depart half an hour afterwards a beautified and renovated creature. One
half of the Fitzgeorgians declared that Mr. Sheldon had established a
very nice little practice, and was saving money; while the other half
were still despondent, and opined that the dentist had private
property, and was eating up his little capital. It transpired in course
of time that Mr. Sheldon had left