My Lady Nicotine Part 14

"'But how,' I asked, 'do you know that my reverting to the pleasant habit of not smoking is the cause of my present ailment?'

"'Oh!' he said, 'you are not sure of that yourself, are you?'

"'I thought,' I replied, 'there might be a doubt about it; though of course I have forgotten what you told me two years ago.'

"'It matters very little,' he said, 'whether you remember what I tell you if you do not follow my orders. But as for knowing that indulgence in not smoking is what has brought you to this state, how long is it since you noticed these symptoms?'

"'I can hardly say,' I answered. 'Still, I should be able to think back.

I had my first sore throat this year the night I saw Mr. Irving at the Lyceum, and that was on my wife's birthday, the 3d of October. How long ago is that?'

"'Why, that is more than three months ago. Are you sure of the date?'"

"'Quite certain,' I told him; 'so, you see, I had my first sore throat before I risked not smoking again.'"

"'I don't understand this,' he said. 'Do you mean to say that in the beginning of May you were taking my prescription daily? You were not missing a day now and then--forgetting to order a new stock of cigars when the others were done, or flinging them away before they were half smoked? Patients do such things.'

"'No, I a.s.sure you I compelled myself to smoke. At least----'

"'At least what? Come, now, if I am to be of any service to you, there must be no reserve.'

"'Well, now that I think of it, I was only smoking one cigar a day at that time.'

"'Ah! we have it now,' he cried. 'One cigar a day, when I ordered you three? I might have guessed as much. When I tell non-smokers that they must smoke or I will not be answerable for the consequences, they entreat me to let them break themselves of the habit of not smoking gradually. One cigarette a day to begin with, they beg of me, promising to increase the dose by degrees. Why, man, one cigarette a day is poison; it is worse than not smoking.'

"'But that is not what I did.'

"'The idea is the same,' he said. 'Like the others, you make all this moan about giving up completely a habit you should never have acquired.

For my own part, I cannot even understand where the subtle delights of not smoking come in. Compared with health, they are surely immaterial.'

"'Of course, I admit that.'

"'Then, if you admit it, why pamper yourself?'

"'I suppose because one is weak in matters of habit. You have many cases like mine?'

"'I have such cases every week,' he told me; 'indeed, it was having so many cases of the kind that made me a specialist in the subject. When I began practice I had not the least notion how common the non-tobacco throat, as I call it, is.'

"'But the disease has been known, has it not, for a long time?'

"'Yes,' he said;' but the cause has only been discovered recently.

I could explain the malady to you scientifically, as many medical men would prefer to do, but you are better to have it in plain English.'

"'Certainly; but I should like to know whether the symptoms in other cases have been in every way similar to mine.'

"'They have doubtless differed in degree, but not otherwise,' he answered. 'For instance, you say your sore throat is accompanied by depression of spirits.'

"'Yes; indeed, the depression sometimes precedes the sore throat.'

"'Exactly. I presume, too, that you feel most depressed in the evening--say, immediately after dinner?'

"'That is certainly the time I experience the depression most.'

"'The result,' he said, 'if I may venture on somewhat delicate matters, is that your depression of spirits infects your wife and family, even your servants?'

"'That is quite true,' I answered. 'Our home has by no means been so happy as formerly. When a man is out of spirits, I suppose, he tends to be brusque and undemonstrative to his wife, and to be easily irritated by his children. Certainly that has been the case with me of late.'

"'Yes,' he exclaimed, 'and all because you have not carried out my directions. Men ought to see that they have no right to indulge in not smoking, if only for the sake of their wives and families. A bachelor has more excuse, perhaps; but think of the example you set your children in not making an effort to shake this self-indulgence off. In short, smoke for the sake of your wife and family, if you won't smoke for the sake of your health.'"

I think this is pretty nearly the whole of Pettigrew's story, but I may add that he left the house in depression of spirits, and then infected Jimmy and the others with the same ailment, so that they should all have hurried in a cab to the house of Dr. Southwick.

"Honestly," Pettigrew said, "I don't think she believed a word I told her."

"If she had only been a man," Marriot sighed, "we could have got round her."

"How?" asked Pettigrew.

"Why, of course," said Marriot, "we could have sent her a tin of the Arcadia."

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CHAPTER x.x.xII.

MY LAST PIPE.

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The night of my last smoke drew near without any demonstration on my part or on that of my friends. I noticed that none of them was now comfortable if left alone with me, and I knew, I cannot tell how, that though they had too much delicacy to refer in my presence to my coming happiness, they often talked of it among themselves. They smoked hard and looked covertly at me, and had an idea that they were helping me.

They also addressed me in a low voice, and took their seats noiselessly, as if some one were ill in the next room.

"We have a notion," Scrymgeour said, with an effort, on my second night, "that you would rather we did not feast you to-morrow evening?"

"Oh, I want nothing of that kind," I said.

"So I fancied," Jimmy broke in. "Those things are rather a mockery, but of course if you thought it would help you in any way----"

"Or if there is anything else we could do for you," interposed Gilray, "you have only to mention it."

Though they irritated rather than soothed me, I was touched by their kindly intentions, for at one time I feared my friends would be sarcastic. The next night was my last, and I found that they had been looking forward to it with genuine pain. As will have been seen, their custom was to wander into my room one by one, but this time they came together. They had met in the boudoir, and came up the stair so quietly that I did not hear them. They all looked very subdued, and Marriot took the cane chair so softly that it did not creak. I noticed that after a furtive glance at me each of them looked at the centre-table, on which lay my brier, Romulus and Remus, three other pipes that all had their merits, though they never touched my heart until now, my clay tobacco-jar, and my old pouch. I had said good-by to these before my friends came in, and I could now speak with a comparatively firm voice.

Marriot and Gilray and Scrymgeour signed to Jimmy, as if some plan of action had been arranged, and Jimmy said huskily, sitting upon the hearth-rug:

"Pettigrew isn't coming. He was afraid he would break down."

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