IX
Breakfast was very nearly over, and it was of such exceptionally goodquality that very few remarks had been made. Finally the ball was setrolling by the Lawyer.
"How many packs of cigarettes do you smoke a day?" he asked, as the Idiottook one from his pocket and placed it at the side of his coffee-cup.
"Never more than forty-six," said the Idiot. "Why? Do you think ofstarting a cigarette stand?"
"Not at all," said Mr. Brief. "I was only wondering what chance you hadto live to maturity, that's all. Your maturity period will be in abouteight hundred and sixty years from now, the way I calculate, and itseemed to me that, judging from the number of cigarettes you smoke, youwere not likely to last through more than two or three of those years."
"Oh, I expect to live longer than that," said the Idiot. "I think I'mgood for at least four years. Don't you, Doctor?"
"I decline to have anything to say about your case," retorted the Doctor,whose feeling towards the Idiot was not surpassingly affectionate.
"In that event I shall probably live five years more," said the Idiot.
The Doctor's lip curled, but he remained silent.
"You'll live," put in Mr. Pedagog, with a chuckle. "The good die young."
"How did you happen to keep alive all this time then, Mr. Pedagog?" askedthe Idiot.
"I have always eschewed tobacco in every form, for one thing," said Mr.Pedagog.
"I am surprised," put in the Idiot. "That's really a bad habit, and Imarvel greatly that you should have done it."
The School-Master frowned, and looked at the Idiot over the rims of hisglasses, as was his wont when he was intent upon getting explanations.
"Done what?" he asked, severely.
"Chewed tobacco," replied the Idiot. "You just said that one of thethings that has kept you lingering in this vale of tears was that youhave always chewed tobacco. I never did that, and I never shall do it,because I deem it a detestable diversion."
"I didn't say anything of the sort," retorted Mr. Pedagog, getting red inthe face. "I never said that I chewed tobacco in any form."
"Oh, come!" said the Idiot, with well-feigned impatience, "what's the useof talking that way? We all heard what you said, and I have no doubt thatit came as a shock to every member of this assemblage. It certainly was ashock to me, because, with all my weaknesses and bad habits, I thinktobacco-chewing unutterably bad. The worst part of it is that you chew itin every form. A man who chews chewing-tobacco only may some time throwoff the habit, but when one gets to be such a victim to it that he chewsup cigars and cigarettes and plugs of pipe tobacco, it seems to me he isincurable. It is not only a bad habit then; it amounts to a vice."
Mr. Pedagog was getting apoplectic. "You know well enough that I neversaid the words you attribute to me," he said, sternly.
"Really, Mr. Pedagog," returned the Idiot, with an irritating shake ofhis head, as if he were confidentially hinting to the School-Master tokeep quiet--"really you pain me by these futile denials. Nobody forcedyou into the confession. You made it entirely of your own volition. NowI ask you, as a man and brother, what's the use of saying anything moreabout it? We believe you to be a person of the strictest veracity, butwhen you say a thing before a tableful of listeners one minute, and denyit the next, we are forced to one of two conclusions, neither of which ispleasing. We must conclude that either, repenting your confession, yousacrifice the truth, or that the habit to which you have confessed hasentirely destroyed your perception of the moral question involved. Undueuse of tobacco has, I believe, driven men crazy. Opium-eating hasdestroyed all regard for truth in one whose word had always been regardedas good as a government bond. I presume the undue use of tobacco canaccomplish the same sad result. By-the-way, did you ever try opium?"
"Opium is ruin," said the Doctor, Mr. Pedagog's indignation being sogreat that he seemed to be unable to find the words he was evidentlydesirous of hurling at the Idiot.
"It is, indeed," said the Idiot. "I knew a man once who smoked one littlepipeful of it, and, while under its influence, sat down at his table andwrote a story of the supernatural order that was so good that everybodysaid he must have stolen it from Poe or some other master of the weird,and now nobody will have anything to do with him. Tobacco, however, inthe sane use of it, is a good thing. I don't know of anything that ismore satisfying to the tired man than to lie back on a sofa, of anevening, and puff clouds of smoke and rings into the air. One of thefinest dreams I ever had came from smoking. I had blown a great mountainof smoke out into the room, and it seemed to become real, and I climbedto its summit and saw the most beautiful country at my feet--a country inwhich all men were happy, where there were no troubles of any kind, whereno whim was left ungratified, where jealousies were not, and where everyman who made more than enough to live on paid the surplus into the commontreasury for the use of those who hadn't made quite enough. It was anational realization of the golden rule, and I maintain that if smokingwere bad nothing so good, even in the abstract form of an idea, couldcome out of it."
"That's a very nice thought," said the Poet. "I'd like to put that intoverse. The idea of a people dividing up their surplus of wealth among theless successful strugglers is beautiful."
"You can have it," said the Idiot, with a pleased smile. "I don't writepoetry of that kind myself unless I work hard, and I've found that whenthe poet works hard he produces poems that read hard. You are welcome toit. Another time I was dreaming over my cigar, after a day of the hardestkind of trouble at the office. Everything had gone wrong with me, and Iwas blue as indigo. I came home here, lit a cigar, and threw myself downupon my bed and began to puff. I felt like a man in a deep pit, out ofwhich there was no way of getting. I closed my eyes for a second, and toall intents and purposes I lay in that pit. And then what did tobacco dofor me? Why, it lifted me right out of my prison. I thought I was sittingon a rock down in the depths. The stars twinkled tantalizingly above me.They invited me to freedom, knowing that freedom was not attainable. ThenI blew a ring of smoke from my mouth, and it began to rise slowly atfirst, and then, catching in a current of air, it flew upward morerapidly, widening constantly, until it disappeared in the darkness above.Then I had a thought. I filled my mouth as full of smoke as possible, andblew forth the greatest ring you ever saw, and as it started to rise Igrasped it in my two hands. It struggled beneath my weight, lengthenedout into an elliptical link, and broke, and let me down with a dull thud.Then I made two rings, grasping one with my left hand and the other withmy right--"
"I GRASPED IT IN MY TWO HANDS"]
"And they lifted you out of the pit, I suppose?" sneered theBibliomaniac.
"I do not say that they did," said the Idiot, calmly. "But I do know thatwhen I opened my eyes I wasn't in the pit any longer, but up-stairs in myhall-bedroom."
"How awfully mysterious!" said the Doctor, satirically.
"Well, I don't approve of smoking," said Mr. Whitechoker. "I agree withthe London divine who says it is the pastime of perdition. It is notprompted by natural instincts. It is only the habit of artificialcivilization. Dogs and horses and birds get along without it. Whyshouldn't man?"
"Hear! hear!" cried Mr. Pedagog, clapping his hands approvingly.
"Where? where?" put in the Idiot. "That's a great argument. Dog's don'tput up in boarding-houses. Is the boarding-house, therefore, the resultof a degraded, artificial civilization? I have seen educated horses thatdidn't smoke, but I have never seen an educated horse, or an uneducatedone, for that matter, that had even had the chance to smoke, or the kindof mouth that would enable him to do it in case he had the chance. Ihave also observed that horses don't read books, that birds don't eatmutton-chops, that dogs don't go to the opera, that donkeys don't playthe piano--at least, four-legged donkeys don't--so you might as wellargue that since horses, dogs, birds, and donkeys get along withoutliterature, music, mutton-chops, and piano-playing--"
"You've covered music," put in the Lawyer, who liked to be precise.
"
True; but piano-playing isn't always music," returned the Idiot."You might as well argue because the beasts and the birds do withoutthese things man ought to. Fish don't smoke, neither do they join thepolice-force, therefore man should neither smoke nor become a guardianof the peace."
"PIANO-PLAYING ISN'T ALWAYS MUSIC"]
"Nevertheless it is a pastime of perdition," insisted Mr. Whitechoker.
"No, it isn't," retorted the Idiot. "Smoking is the business ofperdition. It smokes because it has to."
"There! there!" remonstrated Mr. Pedagog.
"You mean hear! hear! I presume," said the Idiot.
"I mean that you have said enough!" remarked Mr. Pedagog, sharply.
"Very well," said the Idiot. "If I have convinced you all I am satisfied,not to say gratified. But really, Mr. Pedagog," he added, rising to leavethe room, "if I were you I'd give up the practice of chewing--"
"Hold on a minute, Mr. Idiot," said Mr. Whitechoker, interrupting. He wasdesirous that Mr. Pedagog should not be further irritated. "Let me askyou one question. Does your old father smoke?"
"No," said the Idiot, leaning easily over the back of his chair--"no.What of it?"
"Nothing at all--except that perhaps if he could get along without it youmight," suggested the clergyman.
"He couldn't get along without it if he knew what good tobacco was," saidthe Idiot.
"Then why don't you introduce him to it?" asked the Minister.
"Because I do not wish to make him unhappy," returned the Idiot, softly."He thinks his seventy years have been the happiest years that any mortalever had, and if now in his seventy-first year he discovered that duringthe whole period of his manhood he had been deprived through ignorance ofso great a blessing as a good cigar, he'd become like the rest of us,living in anticipation of delights to come, and not finding approximatebliss in living over the past. Trust me, my dear Mr. Whitechoker, to lookafter him. He and my mother and my life are all I have."
The Idiot left the room, and Mr. Pedagog put in a greater part of thenext half-hour in making personal statements to the remaining boarders tothe effect that the word he used was eschewed, and not the one attributedto him by the Idiot.
Strange to say, most of them were already aware of that fact.