God, and when I've got my teeth in I probably don't look
my age, which is forty-five.

Making a mental note to buy razor-blades, I got into
the bath and started soaping. I soaped my arms (I've got
those kind of pudgy arms that are freckled up to the
elbow) and then took the back-brush and soaped my
shoulder-blades, which in the ordinary way I can't reach.
It's a nuisance, but there are several parts of my body that
I can't reach nowadays. The truth is that I'm inclined to
be a little bit on the fat side. I don't mean that I'm like
something in a side-show at a fair. My weight isn't much
over fourteen stone, and last time I measured round my
waist it was either forty-eight or forty-nine, I forget which.
And I'm not what they call "disgustingly" fat, I haven't
got one of those bellies that sag half-way down to the
knees. It's merely that I'm a little bit broad in the beam,
with a tendency to be barrel-shaped. Do you know the
active, hearty kind of fat man, the athletic bouncing type
that's nicknamed Fatty or Tubby and is always the life
and soul of the party? I'm that type. "Fatty," they mostly
call me. Fatty Bowling. George Bowling is my real name.

But at that moment I didn't feel like the life and soul of
the party. And it struck me that nowadays I nearly always
do have a morose kind of feeling in the early mornings,
although I sleep well and my digestion's good. I knew
what it was, of course--it was those bloody false teeth. The
things were magnified by the water in the tumbler, and
they were grinning at me like the teeth in a skull. It gives
you a rotten feeling to have your gums meet, a sort of
pinched-up, withered feeling like when you've bitten into
a sour apple. Besides, say what you will, false teeth are a
landmark. When your last natural tooth goes, the time

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