hey are only dreams. Those selfish days are done, and I see that
though they were happy days, the happiness was a mistake. As for the
struggle that is supposed to take place between a man and tobacco, after
he sees smoking in its true colors, I never experienced it. I have not
even any craving for the Arcadia now, though it is a tobacco that should
only be smoked by our greatest men. Were we to present a tin of it to
our national heroes, instead of the freedom of the city, they would
probably thank us more. Jimmy and the others are quite unworthy to smoke
it; indeed, if I had my way they would give up smoking altogether.
Nothing, perhaps, shows more completely how I have severed my bonds than
this: that my wife is willing to let our friends smoke in the study, but
I will not hear of it. There shall be no smoking in my house; and I have
determined to speak to Jimmy about smoking out at our spare bedroom
window. It is a mere contemptible pretence to say that none of the smoke
comes back into the room. The curtains positively reek of it, and we
must have them washed at once. I shall speak plainly to Jimmy because I
want him to tell the others. They must understand clearly on what terms
they are received in this house, and if they prefer making chimneys of
themselves to listening to music, by all means let them stay at home.

But when my wife is asleep and all the house is still, I listen to the
man through the wall. At such times I have my brier in my mouth, but
there is no harm in that, for it is empty. I did not like to give away
my brier, knowing no one who understood it, and I always carry it about
with me now to remind me of my dark past. When the man through the wall
lights up I put my cold pipe in my mouth and we have a quiet hour
together.

[Illustration]

I have never, to my knowledge, seen the man through the wall, for his
door is round the corner, and, besides, I have no interest in him until
half-past eleven P.M. We begin then. I know him chiefly by his pipes,
and them I know by his taps on the wall as he knocks the ashes out of
them. He does not smoke the Arcadia, for his temper is hasty, and he
breaks the coals with his foot. Though I am compelled to say that I do
not consider his character very lovable, he has his good points, and I
like his attachment to his brier. He scrapes it, on the whole, a little
roughly, but that is because he is so anxious to light up again, and I
discovered long ago that he has s