after his
tumble, he gave vent to a shout of laughter, and continued to indulge in
hilarious demonstrations all the time he was wringing the water out of
his garments, while the terrier barked wildly round him.

But suddenly, in the very midst of a laugh, he became grave and pale,--
so pale, that a more obtuse creature than Cuffy might have deemed him
ill. While his mouth and eyes slowly opened wider and wider, his hands
slapped his pockets, first his trousers, then his vest, then his coat,
after which they fell like pistol-shots on his thighs, and he exclaimed,
in a voice of horror--"Gone!"

Ay, there could be no doubt about it; every particle of his tobacco was
gone! It had never been much, only three or four plugs; but it was
strong, and he had calculated that, what with careful husbanding, and
mixing it with other herbs, it would last him for a considerable length
of time.

In a state bordering on frenzy, the sailor rushed back to the rock from
which he had fallen. The "baccy" was not there. He glanced right and
left--no sign of it floating on the sea. In he went, head foremost,
like a determined suicide; down, down to the bottom, for he was an
expert diver, and rioted among the coral groves, and horrified the fish,
until he well-nigh burst, and rose to the surface with a groan and
splutter that might have roused envy in a porpoise. Then down he went
again, while Cuffy stood on the shore regarding him with mute amazement.

Never did pearl-diver grope for the treasures of the deep with more
eager intensity than did John Jarwin search for that lost tobacco. He
remained under water until he became purple in the face, and, coming to
the surface after each dive, stayed only long enough to recharge his
lungs with air. How deeply he regretted at that time the fact that
man's life depended on so frequent and regular a supply of atmospheric
air! How enviously he glanced at the fish which, with open eyes and
mouths, appeared to regard him with inexpressible astonishment--as well
they might! At last Jarwin's powers of endurance began to give way, and
he was compelled to return to the shore, to the great relief of Cuffy,
which miserable dog, if it had possessed the smallest amount of
reasoning power, must have deemed its master hopelessly insane.

"But why so much ado about a piece of tobacco?" we hear some lady-reader
or non-smoker exclaim.

Just because our hero was, and had been since his childhood, an
invet