d habit, spoiling my morals in a physical
sense," said Smith, addressing us as we sat after supper around our
camp-fire; "I find myself taking to the pipe out here, in these old
woods, with a relish I never have at home. It seems to agree with me
here, and I expect by the time I get back to civilization, I shall be
as great a smoker as the Doctor or Spalding. If I do, I shall have to
pay for it by indigestion and hypochondria, things that you of the fat
kine, know nothing about."

"Well," replied the Doctor, "You will only have to call on me as you
did last month, and then send for Spalding to draw your will, as you
did the next day, when you were as well as I am, excepting that kink
in your head about your going to die."

"Why, the truth is," retorted Smith, "I had made up my mind, after
twelve hours consideration, to take the medicine you left, and I
appeal to H----here, if it was after that, anything more than a
reasonable precaution to be prepared for any contingency that might
happen. Your medicines, Doctor, and the testamentary disposition of a
man's worldly effects, are very natural associations."

"Very well," said the Doctor; "you'll send for me again in a month
after our return, and in that case, it may be, that the money you paid
Spalding for drawing your will, will not have been thrown away. But in
regard to the use of the pipe; I propose that we call upon Spalding,
for a legal opinion, or an argument in its favor. It's his business to
defend criminals, and I file an accusation against smoking generally,
excepting, however, from the indictments the use of the pipe, as in
some sort a necessity, on all such excursions as ours."

"I shall not undertake," said Spalding, "to enter into a labored
defence of the use of tobacco in any form. I only move for a
mitigation of punishment, and will state the circumstances upon which
I base my appeal to the clemency of the court. The exception in the
indictment, enables me to avoid the plea of necessity, which I should
have interposed, founded upon a huge forest meal, and the abundance as
well as impertinence of the musquitoes of these woods."

"I called the other day upon a venerable friend and client, who is
travelling the down hill of life quietly, and though with the present
summer he will have accomplished his three score years and ten, his
voice is as cheerful, and his heart as young, as they were decades
ago, when his manhood was in the glory and strength of it