The old man had a toothache and his young friend had brought him in to be looked at. “See what you can do,” the young friend said, grinning brightly. “The old fool means a lot to me; I hate to see him in pain.”

Humming, he sets to work. An easy job, the crown is cracked from overuse. “This crown is ancient,” he mutters, and the old man laughs and winks at him. “Had it a while, have you?” The technology has gotten immeasurably better since whatever antediluvian period the old crown hailed from, and he has the crown off in a trice. “Now, I can pull this old one off just like that, but it’ll take a month or so to make a new crown from the mold. We can do it in porcelain like the last one, or gold, if you’re feeling fancier; takes about the same time either way.”

“What if you could make it faster?” This from the young friend. “Could you replace it today?”

The dentist laughs. “I can put it on the tooth as fast as I can pull it off, but the mold takes as long as it does, and you don’t want a crown shaped for someone else’s tooth.”

The young friend stands up and puts his hand on the dentist’s shoulder and stares intently down at him and goodness had he always been this tall? “Friend dentist, good work should be rewarded. I grant to you the power to make gold crowns at a touch. Try now, and believe!”

So he does, touches the raw tooth, I mean, and a gold crown appears in his other hand with a tiny pop!

“Well,” Milton Midas, DDS, breathes. “Isn’t that delightful.“