A WOMAN DENTIST.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 158, 24 March 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

A WOMAN DENTIST.

I _ * ANOTHER SEX ILLUSION SHATTERED. By TWELLS BREN in "Daily Mail. ' Once, when I tottered from my dentist's chair alter a severe pogrom, he said: "J am afraid that I have had to hurt you. Yon let thing- go too long. If you came to see me every six months you would save money and pain." 1 am a miser with pain; so 1 visit my dentist now bi-annually. Last week the little dug-out that m.? dentist made in one of my few sound teeth on the |a>t visit began to remind me that he expected me again. It was six months to a day. Once more I was convinced that my dentist is th.e < lever ■ est dentist in London. 1 telephoned lor an appointment, and my dentist, mi a curiously light and niii-ical voice, replied : "I can give you twelve o'clock to-morrow." So. on the morrow. I jumped boldly into a taxicab and gave the driver tlio address in Wimpole Street. I'm jtr-t like that —when I've got to do a tiling I'm the bravest of the brave. Everything was up against me, too. The very first driver 1 hailed accepted me graciously. The day before, when 1 was late for a luncheon appointment, live "Hag-up" tyrants sauntered arrogantly past me. 1 went to my dentist's reflecting sadly upon the irony of the gods. There were no blocks in tile traffic; Llio driver did not take me the long way round to show how interesting London is: the wa'ting-room at my dentist's was empty. I was ju.st about to snatch courage and my hat, when my dentist's insultingly cheerful maid opened the door of the waiting-room and said, "Miss filling will ;-ee you now. sir." Bewildered. I followed t'ne maid to the sacrificial chamber. .My dentist was not v'sjble. I colli routed instead a young and disturbingly charming person in a costume that was half Y.A. I), uniform and half fashion-plate. "I had bettet explain," file said, with brisk 'silveriness. ".Mr. Pullhard lias crone to France with the R.A.M.C, and I have taken over his practice. If you do not care- for a woman dental surgeon, do please be frank." She smiled again—beautifully—a smile that, differed from the sacrificial grin of Pullhard as the smile of spring differs from the -mirk of th. 1 crocodile when it meets its breakfast. I though things out rapidly. "Li any case," I reflected, ''her natural woman's tenderness will not ;:llow her to hurt me as Pullhard always hurts me. I can burst into tears--and she would instantly --top. I can swoon before she has pedalled for more than a minute on that vile drill thing with the harmonium basement. (I had often tried swooning with Pullhard with the only result that he pedalled harder to revive nxe.) As far as the rublier gag allows, I can even shriek." I decided to trust myself to her. So 1 assured her that \ was delighted to he her patient, mid sflt in the chair. She siii'Ved again, dazzingly, and adjusted the tilting machinery. She then took from its tray the little mirror and the nerve strafer of the first degree. "Open wide, please, 1 ' she said in alarming imitation of Pullhard's first chatty remark. "Which tooth is troubling you?" I pointed to the scene ui her predecessor's last reconnaissance. She inspected his dugout with th.e little mirror and commenced to probe its communication trench with the strafer of the first logive. According to old custom when dealing with Pullhard, I said, "00-00-oo!" It was always advisable to start diplomatic protests early with Pullhard. "Did 1 hurt you?" asked th.e woman dentist with faint reproach. "Onlv a little." 1 answered apologetically. ' "J won't hurt you more than can lie lielpj." she said lit inly : " hut you have let this tooth go rather badly." I groped for my diary- more to gam time than anything: tune is the sole essence of the patient's strategy in the dentist's chair. I produced my diary and showed her the entry of my last visit. "Mr. Pullhard always arranged for niv teeth to go at six months," 1 said resentfully. "Well. I don't know anvthing ahout that," smiled the woman dentist; "hut there's quite a cavity here." "00-00-oo!" I said in a few minutes. The woman dentist ignored it am! screwed the .strafer of the second degree (the one with the curved point) a few feet further into my dug-out. "000-oooo!" I said, in my loudest conversationa] pitch. T'ne woman dentist arrested her advance and withdrew the strafer. "Th's tooth seems to be very sensitive," she observed. In her omphasis of that word "very" there wa~ sur.lv a note of that same callous irony that old Pullhard had more than once silenced me with? Hut I thought of her sex. her youth. her disturbing charm. I said to myself. " Here is otiry sympathy and woman's tender apprehension." "Yes." I answered app.nlinglv, "it'.- beastly sensitive." But the lady dental surgeon looked at me sternly.' "In that case, then," she said, "I would advise extraction." A cold rigor down my back rattled the cogwheels of the ''hair. "Oh, don't mention it," I said weakly, "go on, I'll tell you if it hurts too much."

Of course it hurt too much. Don't they always hurt "too much"? Bui the woman dentist had mastered mo She had mastered me much more than old Pullhard ever mastered me. Even though Pullhard went on ivnioively with his Spanish Inquisition, I could nlwavs relieve myself—and keep Pullhard''more or less professionally happy by occasional groans. Even when Pullhard silenced me with the ruhher gag. I could express myself »y spasmodic knee jerks. Once even I kicked all his strafcrs off their pivoted tray and gainoil four minutes' armistice while he collected the fallen. Vain all these taeti. s with the woman dentin. Her enunciation ot (hat word "vorv." her slightl> amused look when I recoiled from the extrae',lon proposal, tdiamed the natural out-d-its "i a bravo man in pain. 1 del not even dare to weep silently when (lie drill started its imitations of .1 shell-turner's lathe. "For here." 1 realised, "have I encountered the Spat, tan modern woman who has no patience with woman's immemorial tenderness to a strong man's tears." So I gripped the arms of the inquisition chair and shut my eyes. Mute'* I allowed li.er to hore into my dug-out and widen its communication trench hy what seemed several yards. T no more than squirmed even when she produced that last refinement of the dentist ■ malignancv. the little sirafer with the fine wire that prohes down to bedrock and then twists round to show how clever it is. Meekly, and in liorrih'e humiliation. T then r'nsH ai a woman s command. Utterly crushed. 1 submitted to the <rng and the little <rurgl<ng thine. And when the metal foundry work uas over I rin«wl ••'am and res • f,-n,n the i-linir of with thai ohl familiar sensation of temponarv ownership of some stranger's face, it

had never bothered n. O wi.en Pullhard looked at me while lie booked the next appointmcnt-but Pullhard was not'a woman. Pullhard had never thrilled ""•on niv entrance with n dazzling «>ijle Uhat did it matter that Pullhard had soon what J J, ok<wJ like with it rubber gag m my mouth ? Hut I need not have worried. That distressingly competent, absorbed, and eno] lady donti<t was looking at' me, not as a man whose features might regain a not uninteresting humnitv after n few hours' rest. She was looking at me only las a dental case. ''Your teeth are all in order now,'' she said. " I shall not want to see you again until there are any fresh symptoms of trouble, One guinea, please." My troth troubled me no more. Hut I wont away with an aching disillusion. If women ar P indeed the tender sex, iiow can they Income dentists