Dr. Dillingham was forty-one years old: a conservative, successful twentiethcentury bachelor prosthodontist. His acquaintances thought him unimaginative; his patients thought he overcharged; his pretty assistant was secretly in love with him. He was, in short, a typical dentist with a secure future. As pride goeth before a fall, so may the typical go before the atypical. Dillingham was not pleased to see Mrs. Nostrand so early in the morning. She was overweight, her arches were fallen, her veins varicose, her manner insufferable. She seemed to be afflicted with most of the maladies imagined by man, with a single remarkable exception: she had virtually perfect teeth. He wondered why she had chosen to inflict herself upon him. Possibly it was because every other dentist in the area had already informed her that however common prosthetic restorations might be, they were dictated by the requirements of health, not fashion. "Mrs. Nostrand," he began, knowing it was useless, "no ethical practitioner is going to replace a healthy tooth with a substitute. Our purpose is to restore the mouth, as far as possible, to its original state of health. You s..
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