One time when he had just come back from Frenna's and had been sitting in the chair near her, silently watching her at her work, he exclaimed all of a sudden: "Stop working.

Stop it, I tell you.

Put 'em away.

Put 'em all away, or I'll pinch you." "But why--why ?" Trina protested.
The dentist cuffed her ears.

"I won't have you work." He took her knife and her paint-pots away, and made her sit idly in the window the rest of the afternoon.
It was, however, only when his wits had been stirred with alcohol that the dentist was brutal to his wife.