Long in the Tooth

The other day I went to the dentist for my more or less annual checkup. I'm very lucky to have a dentist. He's a youngish Romanian guy who came to Preuilly several years ago when the previous dentist retired. I signed up immediately and lucky I did. Nowadays it is nigh on impossible to get on to any dentist's books. 

My dental record, with the missing tooth top left in the schema, which is the way the dentist looks at them (top right in real life).

The dentist was in a genial and chatty mood, and asked what was up. I responded that there was nothing the matter, so he nodded and said 'good, just a checkup then' (in French, a checkup is 'un contrôle'). After checking my teeth one by one he informed me that I was a very good brusher. 'How old are you now?' On being told I was 64, he said there was no reason I shouldn't go to my grave with all my own teeth. Except for the one he had to remove last year, which I had somehow cracked.

Then he asked me how come my French is so good. As one does when one is a foreigner, we are both operating in our second language. He does speak English, and would do so if I asked, but we get along just fine in French.