The tobacco was
detestable. Now, if a man _must_ smoke, I think he is under moral
obligation to have decent tobacco. I began to turn ill, and C.
attacked the offender in French; not a word did he understand, and
puffed on tranquil and happy. The idea that any body did not like
smoke was probably the last that could ever be made to enter his head,
even in a language that he did understand. C. then enlisted the next
neighbor, who understood French, and got him to interpret that smoke
made the lady ill. The chimney-descended man now took his pipe out,
and gazed at it and me alternately, with an air of wondering
incredulity, and seemed trying to realize some vast conception, but
failing in the effort, put his pipe back, and smoked as before! Some
old ladies now amiably offered to change places with me, evidently
regarding me as the victim of some singular idiosyncrasy. As I
changed, a light seemed to dawn on the old chimney's mind--a
good-natured one he was; he looked hard at me, and his whiffs became
fainter till at last they ceased, and he never smoked more till I was
safe out of the cars.
LETTER XLVI.
Pages:
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494