What a dangerous trade is the dentist's...

What a dangerous trade is the dentist's!

With what perils he has to contend,

As he plunges his paws

In the gibbering jaws

Of some trusting but terrified friend,

With the risk that before he is ten minutes older

His arms may be bitten off short at the shoulder!

He is born in the West, is the dentist,

And he speaks with a delicate twang,

When polite as a prince,

He requests you to “rinse,”

After gently removing a fang.

(‘ Tis to save wear-and-tear to the mouth, one supposes,

That dentists consistently talk through their noses. )

He is painfully shy, is the dentist;

For he lives such a hand-to-mouth life.

When the sex known as “fair”

Comes and sits in his chair,

He will call for his sister or wife,

For a lady-companion or female relation,—

So strong is the instinct of self-preservation!

He's a talkative man, is the dentist;

Though his patients are loth to reply.

With his fist in your mouth

He may say North is South,

And you cannot well give him the lie;

For it's hard to converse on such themes as the weather,

With jawbone and tongue fastened firmly together!

To a sensitive soul like the dentist

You should always avoid talking “shop.”

If he drops in to tea,

You must certainly see

That your wife does n't ask him to “stop!”

He is facile princeps, perhaps, of his calling;

But jokes about princip'ly forceps ARE galling!

There are people who say of the dentist

That he is n't a gentleman quite.

Half the gents that we see

Are no gentler than he,

And but few are so sweetly polite;

For of all the strange trades to which men are apprentic'd;

The gentlest, I'm certain, is that of the dentist!