on account of that spirit of
Sibyllic confidence and assurance which is, perhaps, its prime
ingredient. But come," glancing at his companion's glass, "for a lyrist,
you let the bottle stay with you too long."

"The lyre and the vine forever!" cried the other in his rapture, or what
seemed such, heedless of the hint, "the vine, the vine! is it not the
most graceful and bounteous of all growths? And, by its being such, is
not something meant--divinely meant? As I live, a vine, a Catawba vine,
shall be planted on my grave!"

"A genial thought; but your glass there."

"Oh, oh," taking a moderate sip, "but you, why don't you drink?"

"You have forgotten, my dear Charlie, what I told you of my previous
convivialities to-day."

"Oh," cried the other, now in manner quite abandoned to the lyric mood,
not without contrast to the easy sociability of his companion. "Oh, one
can't drink too much of good old wine--the genuine, mellow old port.
Pooh, pooh! drink away."

"Then keep me company."

"Of course," with a flourish, taking another sip--"suppose we have
cigars. Never mind your pipe there; a pipe is best when alone. I say,
waiter, bring some cigars--your best."

They were brought in a pretty little bit of western pottery,
representing some kind of Indian utensil, mummy-colored, set down in a
mass of tobacco leaves, whose long, green fans, fancifully grouped,
formed with peeps of red the sides of the receptacle.

Accompanying it were two accessories, also bits of pottery, but smaller,
both globes; one in guise of an apple flushed with red and gold to the
life, and, through a cleft at top, you saw it was hollow. This was for
the ashes. The other, gray, with wrinkled surface, in the likeness of a
wasp's nest, was the match-box. "There," said the stranger, pushing over
the cigar-stand, "help yourself, and I will touch you off," taking a
match. "Nothing like tobacco," he added, when the fumes of the cigar
began to wreathe, glancing from the smoker to the pottery, "I will have
a Virginia tobacco-plant set over my grave beside the Catawba vine."

"Improvement upon your first idea, which by itself was good--but you
don't smoke."

"Presently, presently--let me fill your glass again. You don't drink."

"Thank you; but no more just now. Fill _your_ glass."

"Presently, presently; do you drink on. Never mind me. Now that it
strikes me, let me say, that he who, out of superfine gentility or
fanatic morality, denies himself t