" At Rochester, Mr. Pickwick makes notes on the
four towns of Strood, Rochester, Chatham and Brompton, where the
military were present in strength, and hence the observant gentleman
noted--"The consumption of tobacco in these towns must be very great:
and the smell which pervades the streets must be exceedingly delicious
to those who are extremely fond of smoking." On the evening of the
election at Eatanswill, Tupman and Snodgrass resort to the commercial
room of the Peacock Inn, where "the atmosphere was redolent of
tobacco-smoke, the fumes of which had communicated a rather dingy hue
to the whole room, and more especially to the dusty red curtains which
shaded the windows." Here, among others, were the dirty-faced man with
a clay pipe, the very red-faced man behind a cigar, and the man with a
black eye, who slowly filled a large Dutch pipe with most capacious
bowl. Tupman and Snodgrass were of the company and smoked cigars. Sam
Weller's father smoked his pipe philosophically. If Sam's
"mother-in-law" "flies in a passion, and breaks his pipe, he steps out
and gets another. Then she screams wery loud, and falls into 'sterics;
and he smokes wery comfortably 'till she comes to agin." What better
example could there be of pipe-engendered philosophy? When Mr.
Pickwick and Sam look in at old Weller's house of call off Cheapside,
they find the boxes full of stage coachmen, drinking and smoking, and
among them is the old gentleman himself, "smoking with great
vehemence." After having given his son valuable parental advice, "Mr.
Weller, senior, refilled his pipe from a tin box he carried in his
pocket, and, lighting his fresh pipe from the ashes of the old one,
commenced smoking at a great rate."

A little later when Mr. Pickwick hunts up Perker's clerk Lowten, and
joins the jovial circle at the Magpie and Stump, he finds on his right
hand "a gentleman in a checked shirt and Mosaic studs, with a cigar in
his mouth," who expresses the hope that the newcomer does not "find
this sort of thing disagreeable." "Not in the least," replied Mr.
Pickwick, "I like it very much, although I am no smoker myself." "I
should be very sorry to say I wasn't," interposes another gentleman on
the opposite side of the table. "It's board and lodging to me, is
smoke." Mr. Pickwick glances at the speaker, and thinks that if it
were washing too, it would be all the better!

Later again when the "couple o' Sawbones," the medical students, Ben
Allen and