ected of me, but I could not jump up and wring his hand. I was an
uncle. I stretched out my arm toward the cigar-box, and firmly lighted
my first cigar.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER III.

THE ARCADIA MIXTURE.

[Illustration]

Darkness comes, and with it the porter to light our stair gas. He
vanishes into his box. Already the inn is so quiet that the tap of a
pipe on a window-sill startles all the sparrows in the quadrangle. The
men on my stair emerged from their holes. Scrymgeour, in a
dressing-gown, pushes open the door of the boudoir on the first floor,
and climbs lazily. The sentimental face and the clay with a crack in it
are Marriot's. Gilray, who has been rehearsing his part in the new
original comedy from the Icelandic, ceases muttering and feels his way
along his dark lobby. Jimmy pins a notice on his door, "Called away on
business," and crosses to me. Soon we are all in the old room again,
Jimmy on the hearth-rug, Marriot in the cane chair; the curtains are
pinned together with a pen-nib, and the five of us are smoking the
Arcadia Mixture.

Pettigrew will be welcomed if he comes, but he is a married man, and we
seldom see him nowadays. Others will be regarded as intruders. If they
are smoking common tobaccoes, they must either be allowed to try ours
or requested to withdraw. One need only put his head in at my door to
realize that tobaccoes are of two kinds, the Arcadia and others. No
one who smokes the Arcadia would ever attempt to describe its delights,
for his pipe would be certain to go out. When he was at school, Jimmy
Moggridge smoked a cane chair, and he has since said that from cane to
ordinary mixtures was not so noticeable as the change from ordinary
mixtures to the Arcadia. I ask no one to believe this, for the confirmed
smoker in Arcadia detests arguing with anybody about anything. Were I
anxious to prove Jimmy's statement, I would merely give you the only
address at which the Arcadia is to be had. But that I will not do. It
would be as rash as proposing a man with whom I am unacquainted for
my club. You may not be worthy to smoke the Arcadia Mixture.

[Illustration]

Even though I became attached to you, I might not like to take the
responsibility of introducing you to the Arcadia. This mixture has an
extraordinary effect upon character, and probably you want to remain as
you are. Before I discovered the Arcadia, and communicated it to the
other five--including Pettigrew--we had all