st visit and found that the closet was not the drawing-room.
Jimmy is a fair specimen of a man, not without parts, destroyed by
devotion to his pipe. To this day he thinks that mantelpiece vases are
meant for holding pipe-lights in. We are almost certain that when he
stays with us he smokes in his bedroom--a detestable practice that
I cannot permit.

[Illustration]

Two cigars a day at ninepence apiece come to _L27 7s. 6d._ yearly,
and four ounces of tobacco a week at nine shillings a pound come to
_L5 17s._ yearly. That makes _L33 4s. 6d._ When we calculate
the yearly expense of tobacco in this way, we are naturally taken aback,
and our extravagance shocks us more after we have considered how much
more satisfactorily the money might have been spent. With _L33 4s.
6d._ you can buy new Oriental rugs for the drawing-room, as well as
a spring bonnet and a nice dress. These are things that give permanent
pleasure, whereas you have no interest in a cigar after flinging away
the stump. Judging by myself, I should say that it was want of thought
rather than selfishness that makes heavy smokers of so many bachelors.
Once a man marries, his eyes are opened to many things that he was quite
unaware of previously, among them being the delight of adding an article
of furniture to the drawing-room every month, and having a bedroom in
pink and gold, the door of which is always kept locked. If men would
only consider that every cigar they smoke would buy part of a new
piano-stool in terra-cotta plush, and that for every pound tin of tobacco
purchased away goes a vase for growing dead geraniums in, they would
surely hesitate. They do not consider, however, until they marry, and
then they are forced to it. For my own part, I fail to see why bachelors
should be allowed to smoke as much as they like, when we are debarred
from it.

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The very smell of tobacco is abominable, for one cannot get it out of
the curtains, and there is little pleasure in existence unless the
curtains are all right. As for a cigar after dinner, it only makes
you dull and sleepy and disinclined for ladies' society. A far more
delightful way of spending the evening is to go straight from dinner to
the drawing-room and have a little music. It calms the mind to listen to
your wife's niece singing, "Oh, that we two were Maying!" Even if you
are not musical, as is the case with me, there is a great deal in the
drawing-room to refresh you. There are the