preparatory to cutting the
string. Just then the hammer slipped, and the next minute Mr. Potts'
tooth was flying through the air at the rate of fifty miles a minute,
and he was rolling over on the floor howling and spitting blood. After
Mrs. Potts had picked him up and given him water with which to wash
out his mouth he went down to the front window. While he was sitting
there thinking that maybe it was all for the best, he saw some men
coming by carrying a body on a shutter. He asked what was the matter,
and they told him that Bill Dingus had been murdered by somebody.

Mr. Potts thought he would put on his hat and go down to the coroner's
office and see what the tragedy was. When he got there, Mr. Dingus
had revived somewhat, and he told his story to the coroner. He was
trimming a tree in Butterwick's garden, when he suddenly heard the
explosion of a gun, and the next minute a bullet struck him in the
thigh and he fell to the ground. He said he couldn't imagine who did
it. Then the doctor examined the wound and found a string hanging from
it, and a large bullet suspended upon the string. When he pulled the
string it would not move any, and he said it must be tied to
some other missile still in the flesh. He said it was the most
extraordinary case on record. The medical books reported nothing of
the kind.

Then the doctor gave Mr. Dingus chloroform and proceeded to cut into
him with a knife to find the other end of the string, and while he was
at work Mr. Potts began to feel sick at his stomach and to experience
a desire to go home. At last the doctor cut deep enough; and giving
the string a jerk, out came a molar tooth that looked as if it
might have been aching. Then the doctor said the case was 'more
extraordinary than he had thought it was. He said that tooth couldn't
have been fired from a gun, because it would have been broken to
pieces; it couldn't have been swallowed by Dingus and then broken
through and buried itself in his thigh, for then how could the string
and ball be accounted for?

"The occurrence is totally unaccountable upon any reasonable theory,"
said the doctor, "and I do not know what to believe, unless we are to
conceive that the tooth and the ball were really meteoric stones that
have assumed these remarkable shapes and been shot down upon the earth
with such force as to penetrate Mr. Dingus' leg, and this is so very
improbable that we can hardly accept it unless it is impossible to
find any