The patient’s brown, curiously warm and deep eyes stared into George’s. “I’m Christ,” the patient said. “I can stand a little pain. Or perhaps I won’t feel any at all. I’m never sure of my reactions. Gas won’t be necessary, though.”

The attendant moved slightly forward. Oversoul groaned mentally; but with only an instant’s silence, George went right on talking as if he were used to having Christ in his dental chair all the time. “I’m not allowed to take out teeth without anesthetic,” he said. “And novocaine in a setup like this takes too long. So why not humor me and take the gas? It will make things a lot easier all around.”

A pause. Then Christ shook his head. “Verily. Do as you want, then.”

“Super, super,” George replied, rubbing his hands together. “Now, see how this works?” George demonstrated while the patient hesitantly took a few whiffs.

“Heavenly,” Christ said. Oversoul Seven felt uneasy seeing the man in George’s dental chair, his face brightly lit in George’s lamp, his mouth now open as George peered inside.

“Take another sniff,” George said. Christ complied. He smiled and began humming “Nearer My God To Thee” as the gas took effect, so that George had to tell him to open again. “Wider,” George said.

Watching the procedure, Seven winced as George’s pincers came down on a bicuspid in Christ’s lower jaw. George applied pressure, pulled, and he had the tooth in his hand. “There, you did great. Super! There’s the bugger,” he said, showing Christ the tooth.

Christ was still under, smiling, and for a minute George Brainbridge stepped back in surprise. He’d never seen such a brilliant, uninvolved, innocent smile in his life. The patient was in his forties, yet right now his eyes looked like a boy’s of ten. No, George thought: he had a kid of ten, and the kid never looked that innocent in his life.

“Bless you,” Christ the patient said in a voice so peculiarly sweet and winning that George just stared, still with the tooth in his hand, bloody roots and all. And as the patient spoke, George Brainbridge felt his whole body suddenly, unaccountably become warm and tingly; it felt glowing, pliable, filled with strength as if he himself had become younger in the flash of an eye. Automatically he pushed a square of white gauze into the hole left by the tooth, and swabbed out the blood in the patient’s mouth. All he could mutter, again automatically, was, “Super. You did super.”

In the meantime, Oversoul Seven stared suspiciously at Christ.

“He always blesses everyone,” said Mrs. Much, the attendant. She shook her head emphatically. “Never causes us any trouble.”