tal of ambergris was more valuable than a whole ton
of spermaceti."

"Nor, my lord," said Babbalanja, "would it have been wise to kill the
fish that dropped such treasures: no more than to murder the noddy
that laid the golden eggs."

"Beshrew me! a noddy it must have been," gurgled Mohi through his
pipe-stem, "to lay golden eggs for others to hatch."

"Come, no more of that now," cried Media. "Mohi, how long think you,
may one of these pipe-bowls last?"

"My lord, like one's cranium, it will endure till broken. I have
smoked this one of mine more than half a century."

"But unlike our craniums, stocked full of concretions," said
Babbalanja, our pipe-bowls never need clearing out."

"True," said Mohi, "they absorb the oil of the smoke, instead of
allowing it offensively to incrust."

"Ay, the older the better," said Media, "and the more delicious the
flavor imparted to the fumes inhaled."

"Farnoos forever! my lord," cried Yoomy. "By much smoking, the bowl
waxes russet and mellow, like the berry-brown cheek of a sunburnt
brunette."

"And as like smoked hams," cried Braid-Beard, "we veteran old smokers
grow browner and browner; hugely do we admire to see our jolly noses
and pipe-bowls mellowing together."

"Well said, old man," cried Babbalanja; "for, like a good wife, a pipe
is a friend and companion for life. And whoso weds with a pipe, is no
longer a bachelor. After many vexations, he may go home to that
faithful counselor, and ever find it full of kind consolations and
suggestions. But not thus with cigars or cigarrets: the acquaintances
of a moment, chatted with in by-places, whenever they come handy;
their existence so fugitive, uncertain, unsatisfactory. Once ignited,
nothing like longevity pertains to them. They never grow old. Why, my
lord, the stump of a cigarret is an abomination; and two of them
crossed are more of a _memento-mori_, than a brace of thigh-bones at
right angles."

"So they are, so they are," cried King Media. "Then, mortals, puff we
away at our pipes. Puff, puff, I say. Ah! how we puff! But thus we
demi-gods ever puff at our ease."

"Puff; puff, how we puff," cried Babbalanja. "but life itself is a
puff and a wheeze. Our lungs are two pipes which we constantly smoke."

"Puff, puff! how we puff," cried old Mohi. "All thought is a puff."

"Ay," said Babbalanja, "not more smoke in that skull-bowl of yours
than in the skull on your shoulders: both ends alike."

"Puff! puff! how