"Good morning, neighbour Bangs," said he, "have you seen the steamboat Sea Serpent? She has just come in—twenty miles in one hour!"
"My Christopher has a tooth," roared Mr. Bangs, for his old friend was a little deaf.
"She is expected to go even faster when her boiler is a little larger," said the club man, Peter Broo, by name.
"You never saw a finer tooth. It is a thundering large one. He bit my little finger—here, just put your thumb in my mouth, and I'll show you how the little rogue tried to bite."
"Yes; but you had better take a look at the boat, for it will be off again in an hour."
"'Tis a thundering big tooth, and I thought I would just stop and tell you; and the other will be out to-morrow at farthest. Good morning, I must go and tell the good news to the captain, for every body is glad to hear that the first tooth comes through without fits."
His club mate, not a whit more gifted than himself, stared at Mr. Bangs, as in very boyishness of heart he hopped off first on one foot, and then on the other, as children do. He wondered how a baby's tooth should prevent any one from going to the wharf to see the famous steamboat Sea Serpent. "If the old goose thought he had a thundering big tooth coming through his own gums I should not wonder at it—but a baby's tooth! as if they did not get teeth every day—there, he has met the captain; he'll smoke him with his baby tooth. I will go look at the steamboat Sea Serpent again."
"Hillo! captain, stop, will you?" said Mr. Bangs; "we have a tooth, and a thundering large white tooth it is."
"What! your little grand-daughter has a tooth at last—well, it has been long a coming; is it up or down?"
