Tailpiece Chap. XXVI. "Jimmy began as follows"
222
Headpiece Chap. XXVII. "Jimmy's dream"
223
Pipes
226
"Council for defence calls attention to the prisoner's high and unblemished character"
229
Tailpiece Chap. XXVII.
230
Headpiece Chap. XXVIII.
231
"These indefatigable amateurs began to dance a minuet"
235
A friendly favor
237
Tailpiece Chap. XXVIII.
238
Headpiece Chap. XXIX. "Pettigrew's dream"
239
"He went round the morning-room"
241
"His wife … filled his pipe for him"
243
"Mrs. Pettigrew sent one of the children to the study"
244
Tailpiece Chap. XXIX. "I awarded the tin of Arcadia to Pettigrew"
246
Headpiece Chap. XXX. "Sometimes I think it is all a dream"
247
Tailpiece Chap. XXX.
251
Headpiece Chap. XXXI. "They thought I had weakly yielded"
252
"They went one night in a body to Pettigrew's"
254
Tailpiece Chap. XXXI.
259
260
"Then we began to smoke"
262
"I conjured up the face of a lady"
265
"Not even Scrymgeour knew what my pouch had been to me"
267
Tailpiece Chap. XXXII.
268
Headpiece Chap. XXXIII. "When my wife is asleep and all the house is still"
269
"The man through the wall"
272
Pipes
275
Tailpiece Chap. XXXIII.
276
MY LADY NICOTINE.
CHAPTER I.
MATRIMONY AND SMOKING COMPARED.
The circumstances in which I gave up smoking were these:
I was a mere bachelor, drifting toward what I now see to be a tragic middle age. I had become so accustomed to smoke issuing from my mouth that I felt incomplete without it; indeed, the time came when I could refrain from smoking if doing nothing else, but hardly during the hours of toil. To lay aside my pipe was to find myself soon afterward wandering restlessly round my table. No blind beggar was ever more abjectly led by his dog, or more loath to cut the string.
I am much better without tobacco, and already have a difficulty in sympathizing with the man I used to be. Even to call him up, as it were, and regard him without prejudice is a difficult task, for we forget the old selves on whom we have turned our backs, as we forget a street that has been reconstructed. Does the freed slave always shiver at the crack of a whip? I fancy not, for I recall but dimly, and without acute suffering, the horrors of my smoking days. There were nights when I awoke with a pain at my heart that made me hold my breath. I did not dare move. After perhaps ten minutes of dread, I would shift my position an inch at a time. Less frequently I felt this sting in the daytime, and believed I was dying while my friends were talking to me. I never mentioned these experiences to a human being; indeed, though a medical man was among my companions, I cunningly deceived him on the rare occasions when he questioned me about the amount of tobacco I was consuming weekly. Often in the dark I not only vowed to give up smoking, but wondered why I cared for it. Next morning I went straight from breakfast to my pipe, without the smallest struggle with myself. Latterly I knew, while resolving to break myself of the habit, that I would be better employed trying to sleep. I had elaborate ways of cheating myself, but it became disagreeable to me to know how many ounces of tobacco I was smoking weekly. Often I smoked cigarettes to reduce the number of my cigars.
On the other hand, if these sharp pains be excepted, I felt quite well. My appetite was as good as it is now, and I worked as cheerfully and certainly harder. To some slight extent, I believe,
