go and lounge for an hour to enjoy the forbidden luxury.

In reality, he, like most boys, at first disliked the habit; but it
seemed a fine thing to do, and to some, at any rate, it was a refuge
from vacuity. Besides, they had a confused notion that there was
something "manly" in it, and it derived an additional zest from the
stringency of the rules adopted to put it down.

So a number of the boys smoked, and some few of them to such excess as
seriously to injure their health, and form a habit which they could
never afterwards abandon.

One morning of the Easter holidays, Eric, Montagu, and Russell started
for an excursion down the coast to Rilby Head. As they passed through
Ellan, Eric was deputed to go and buy Easter eggs and other provisions,
as they did not mean to be back for dinner. In about ten minutes he
caught up the other two, just as they were getting out of the town.

"What an age you've been, buying a few Easter eggs," said Russell,
laughing; "have you been waiting till the hens laid?"

"No; they're not the _only_ things I've got."

"Well, but you might have got all the grub at the same shop."

"Ay; but I've procured a more refined article. Guess what it is."

The two boys didn't guess, and Eric said, to enlighten them, "Will you
have a whiff, Monty?"

"A whiff! Oh! I see you've been wasting your tin on cigars--alias,
rolled cabbage-leaves. O fumose puer!"

"Well, will you have one?"

"If you like," said Montagu, wavering; "but I don't much care to smoke."

"Well, _I_ shall, at any rate," said Eric, keeping off the wind with his
cap, as he lighted a cigar, and began to puff.

They strolled on in silence; the smoking didn't promote conversation,
and Russell thought that he had never seen his friend look so
ridiculous, and entirely unlike himself, as he did while strutting along
with the weed in his mouth. The fact was, Eric didn't guess how much he
was hurting Edwin's feelings, and he was smoking more to "make things
look like the holidays," by a little bravado, than anything else. But
suddenly he caught the expression of Russell's face, and instantly
said--

"Oh, I forgot, Edwin; I know you don't like smoking," and he instantly
flung the cigar over the hedge, being really rather glad to get rid of
it. With the cigar, he seemed to have flung away the affected manner he
displayed just before, and the spirits of all three rose at once.

"It isn't that I don't _like_ smoking only, Eri