the measured step of a goddess, Ascanio rose to his feet.
Giacomo Tedeschi approached him with every sign of the most anxious solicitude.
"My friend, I see that you are ill. You did well to come to see me. I am a doctor and vowed to the relief of human suffering. You are in pain, do not deny it. Your face is aflame. It is headache, an acute headache, doubtless. How wise of you to come to see me. You were waiting for me impatiently, I am sure. Yes, a terrible headache. While uttering these words, the old man, strong as a Sabine bull, was pushing Ascanio into his consulting-room and forcing him to recline in that famous operating-chair, which for forty years had borne the weight of suffering Neapolitans.
Then holding him inexorably there:
"I see what it is, your tooth is aching. That's it! Yes, your toothache is very bad."
He took from a case an enormous dentist's forceps, prised open his capacious mouth and with a turn of the forceps pulled out a tooth. Ascanio fled, spitting blood from his streaming jaw, and Professor Giacomo Tedeschi shrieked after him with savage joy:
"A fine tooth! a fine, a very fine tooth! …"
