buy my cigars by the box I could not get them
smuggled into the house. Besides, she would know--I don't say how, I
merely make the statement--that I had been buying cigars. So I get half
a dozen at a time. Perhaps you will sympathize with me when I say that
I have had to abandon my favorite brand. I cannot get Villar y Villars
that look like Celebros, and my wife is quicker in those matters than
she used to be. One day, for instance, she noticed that the cigars in
my case had not the gold ribbon round them, and I almost fancied she
became suspicious. I explained that the ribbon was perhaps a little
ostentatious; but she said it was an intimation of nutty flavor: and
now I take ribbons off the Celebros and put them on the other cigars.
The boxes in which the Celebros arrive have a picturesque design on the
lid and a good deal of lace frilling round the edge, and she likes to
have a box lying about. The top layer of that box is cigars in gold
ribbons, placed there by myself, and underneath are the Celebros. I
never get down to the Celebros.

"For a long time my secret was locked in my breast as carefully as I
shall lock my next week's gift away in the cupboard, if I can find room
for it; but a few of my most intimate friends have an inkling of it now.
When my friends drop in I am compelled to push the Celebro box toward
them, and if they would simply take a cigar and ask no questions all
would be well; for, as I have said, there are cigars on the top. But
they spoil everything by remarking that they have not seen the brand
before. Should my wife not be present this is immaterial, for I have
long had a reputation of keeping good cigars. Then I merely remark that
it is a new brand; and they smoke, probably observing that it reminds
them of a Cabana, which is natural, seeing that it is a Cabana in
disguise. If my wife is present, however, she comes forward smiling, and
remarks, with a fond look in my direction, that they are her birthday
present to her Jack. Then they start back and say they always smoke
a pipe. These Celebros were making me a bad name among my friends, so
I have given a few of them to understand--I don't care to put it more
plainly--that if they will take a cigar from the top layer they will
find it all right. One of them, however, has a personal ill-will to me
because my wife told his wife that I preferred Celebro cigars at twelve
and six a hundred to any other. Now he is expected to smoke the same;
and he