“All right, young fellow my lad,” said George; “you come out along o’ me, and come quiet.  You’re going to the dentist’s, you are, and he’ll Bolshevise you proper, he will.”

The tooth stopped aching at once; it was a wisdom tooth.  But George knew it was only just lying low, to break out into sympathetic strike on Monday morning.  So out he rushed with it and took it to the dentist.  I was the dentist.

I led George gently by the hand to my nice little chair and told him what beautiful weather we were having for the time of the year.  I said, “Open, please,” and George opened.  I then took my nice little steel whangee, beautifully polished, and tickled the delinquent.  A gentle tickle and no more.  I didn’t really go far—­not farther than his back collar-stud—­but George said things as if I were a capitalist.

I then said coldly, “It doesn’t hurt!” I am what is known in the profession as a painless dentist and rarely feel much pain.

I capped his repartee by remarking, “Keep open, please.”  That always shuts ’em up.  George kept open.  I then spilt some cotton-wool in his tooth and put up some scaffolding in the entrance of his mouth, and said nonchalantly (I always charge extra for this), “I have forgotten my niblick; keep open.  I shall be back anon.”  I then went out and had lunch.

When I came back George was still keeping open, but he looked at me very wicked with his blue eyes and asked me from under the cotton-wool if I ever intended to finish my ruddy little job.

I said, “Dear brother and oppressed fellow-striker, I regret that I cannot.  I see by The Dentists’ Daily that our Union has declared a sympathetic strike with the Amalgamated Excavators and Theological Students.  You have my sympathy.  I can no more.”

George tried to persuade me as we went downstairs together, bumping our heads on each step in turn, but it was of no avail.

I do not however regret my pious invention, as I hear that George is a changed man.  Being intelligent, he thought things over for himself, instead of letting a man in a red tie do it for him, and after six weeks came to the conclusion that a strike is a game that more than one can play at.  He strikes now only in his holidays.  He never now forgets his tools or leaves taps running.  He does a good day’s plumb for a good day’s pay.  And he sings while he works.  Strange to say that little tooth of his has given up striking too.

But yet it is not strange, for, as I told you, it was a wisdom tooth.

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    “L3 10s.  HUSBANDS.

    WIFE WHO HOUSEKEEPS FOR THREE ON L2 A WEEK.”—­Daily Paper.

But isn’t this rather trigamous?

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[Illustration:  MANNERS AND MODES.

TYPICAL VOTARIES OF TERPSICHORE, MOST GRACEFUL OF THE MUSES.]

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