But whether you stop to think or not, this exciting process of digestion is going on day after day. Sometimes rather badly, but always with a great show of efficiency. It is, on the whole, one of the worst-done jobs in the world. Now first you must know that those tiny, hard edges of bone, which you must have noticed a hundred times in the front of your mouth, are teeth and are put there for a very definite purpose. They are the ivory gates to the body.
Ivory gates to the body.
They are nature's tiny sentinels and if you've ever bitten yourself you know how sharp they can be and what efficient little watchmen they are. Just try to slip your finger in your mouth once without your teeth's permission and see how far you get. Or try to take it out once they've captured it. In this process, they are assisted by the tongue, which is that awful looking thing just back of the teeth. Now the tongue, which we call the escalator of the body or Nature's Nobleman for short, and the teeth toss the food back and forth between them until there is nothing left of it, except those little bones which you have to take out between your thums and forefinger and put on the butter plate.