Ellis Parker Butler

“ S. Potts looked at him sorrowfully. “Ef that ain't just like you, Daniel!” he said. “There ain't no logic in you. Of course if this was a pack an' parcel o' lies I was tellin' you, it might be that I'd go on an' say Peter Guppy got the hydrophoby from that bite, but nothin' of that kind happened. Natchurally. Because them was Peter's own teeth what bit him. If Peter had had hydrophoby when them teeth bit him then they would have give it to him, like as not, but he didn't have. The trouble was that he swallered them teeth. I don't suppose you know anything about physiology, Daniel?” ”

“ They ought to have been arrested an' tried. They ought to have had a fair trial.”
“Well, it ain't much use tellin' you things, Daniel,” said S. Potts with disgust. “Seems to me like Peter Guppy give them teeth all the trial they deserved. I bet you don't even see the moral what this tale has got in it for you. Do you, now?”
Old Daniel wrinkled his brow and thought deeply. Suddenly he smiled. “Sure I do!” he said. “Sure I do, S. Potts! When a feller invents Auxiliary Motor Teeth he don't want to use 'em; he wants to sell 'em to other folks.” ”

“ That's what a lazy man always thinks of first off—gittin' power to do his work for him. First off Peter Guppy thought he'd hire a boy to champ his teeth for him, whilst all he had to do would be to lay back an' look on; but he didn't have no money to hire a boy. Then he thought what a fine thing it would be to have self-workin' teeth that would champ by machinery whilst he looked on, an' then he stood up an' yelled. He'd thought what he could invent about false teeth. He could invent self-operatin' teeth. Nobody had ever invented self-operatin' teeth, so far as he knew. ”