84 MEMORIES OF MEN AND HORSES 



the rest of it is all there still, and likely to remain there, 

 I am sorry to say, as it is impossible to extract it. 



" Decayed ? Yes, it is badly decayed. Six weeks 

 ago it might not have been possible to detect this, but 

 now you can easily in the usual manner, by the smell. 

 Before going further, however, let me explain to you 

 that horses vary to a most extraordinary extent in the 

 times at which they shed their teeth. Understand, I do 

 not extract any that are not loose and ready to come 

 away, but both from Macheath and Donovan, before 

 the Middle Park Plate in their respective years, I took 

 teeth which horses do not usually shed until the spring 

 of the following year, and from Donovan again I took, 

 before the St Leger, the teeth which you would not 

 have expected him to shed until he was a four-year-old. 



" Now this tooth of Orme's is one which is not really 

 due to go until next year. It is one of his back teeth, 

 and the trouble is that the first tooth, of which I have 

 taken away a small part, is in pieces and the permanent 

 one which is coming underneath is decayed." 



" I quite understand, Mr Loeffler ; but tell me to what 

 you attribute Orme's illness." 



11 Simply and solely to this tooth. It is a curious case, 

 but there is nothing more mysterious about it than there 

 is about a man with a decayed tooth having the face- 

 ache. The saliva running from his mouth was only the 

 natural result of his swollen tongue, and the blisters 

 and inflammation of the tongue were caused, no doubt, 

 by its having been grazed by the sharp, broken edges of 

 the tooth, and thus becoming inoculated, so to speak, 

 with decayed matter. There is poison enough in that. 



" If you knew what that tooth smells like, you oh, 

 you would never forget it." 



