ulls teeth, with an ease
and expedition hitherto unknown, and is in no want of patients among
this open-mouthed crowd. One sufferer after another climbs up into
the wagon, and goes through the operation in the public gaze. A
stolid, good-natured hind mounts the seat. The dentist examines his
mouth, and finds the offending tooth. He then turns to the crowd and
explains the case. He takes a little instrument that is neither
forceps nor turnkey, stands upon the seat, seizes the man's nose, and
jerks his head round between his knees, pulling his mouth open (there
is nothing that opens the mouth quicker than a sharp upward jerk of
the nose) with a rude jollity that sets the spectators in a roar.
Down he goes into the cavern, and digs away for a quarter of a
minute, the man the while as immovable as a stone image, when he
holds up the bloody tooth. The patient still persists in sitting
with his mouth stretched open to its widest limit, waiting for the
operation to begin, and will only close the orifice when he is well
shaken and shown the tooth. The dentist gives him some yellow liquid
to hold in his mouth, which the man insists on swallowing, wets a
handkerchief and washes his face, roughly rubbing his nose the wrong
way, and lets him go. Every step of the process is eagerly watched
by the delighted spectators.

He is succeeded by a woman, who is put through the same heroic
treatment, and exhibits like fortitude. And so they come; and the
dentist after every operation waves the extracted trophy high in air,
and jubilates as if he had won another victory, pointing to the stone
statue yonder, and reminding them that this is the glorious day of
St. Antonino. But this is not all that this man of science does. He
has the genuine elixir d'amour, love-philters and powders which never
fail in their effects. I see the bashful girls and the sheepish
swains come slyly up to the side of the wagon, and exchange their
hard-earned francs for the hopeful preparation. O my brown beauty,
with those soft eyes and cheeks of smothered fire, you have no need
of that red philter! What a simple, childlike folk! The shrewd
fellow in the wagon is one of a race as old as Thebes and as new as
Porkopolis; his brazen face is older than the invention of bronze,
but I think he never had to do with a more credulous crowd than this.
The very cunning in the face of the peasants is that of the fox; it
is a sort of instinct, and not an intelligent suspicion.