rly, though not, perhaps, so handsome. I fastened on the holder
with sealing-wax, and often a week passed without my having to renew the
joint.

It was no easy matter lighting a pipe like mine, especially when I had
no matches. I always meant to buy a number of boxes, but somehow I put
off doing it. Occasionally I found a box of vestas on my mantelpiece,
which some caller had left there by mistake, or sympathizing, perhaps,
with my case; but they were such a novelty that I never felt quite at
home with them. Generally I remembered they were there just after my
pipe was lighted.

When I kept them in mind and looked forward to using them, they were
at the other side of the room, and it would have been a pity to get
up for them. Besides, the most convenient medium for lighting one's
pipe is paper, after all; and if you have not an old envelope in your
pocket, there is probably a photograph standing on the mantelpiece.
It is convenient to have the magazines lying handy; or a page from a
book--hand-made paper burns beautifully--will do. To be sure, there is
the lighting of your paper. For this your lamp is practically useless,
standing in the middle of the table, while you are in an easy-chair
by the fireside; and as for the tape-and-spark contrivance, it is the
introduction of machinery into the softest joys of life. The fire is
best. It is near you, and you drop your burning spill into it with a
minimum waste of energy. The proper fire for pipes is one in a cheerful
blaze. If your spill is carelessly constructed the flame runs up into
your fingers before you know what you are doing, so that it is as well
to marry and get your wife to make spills for you. Before you begin to
smoke, scatter these about the fireplace. Then you will be able to reach
them without rising. The irritating fire is the one that has burned
low--when the coals are more than half cinders, and cling to each other
in fear of death. With such a fire it is no use attempting to light a
pipe all at once. Your better course now is to drop little bits of paper
into the likely places in the fire, and have a spill ready to apply to
the one that lights first. It is an anxious moment, for they may merely
shrivel up sullenly without catching fire, and in that case some men
lose their tempers. Bad to lose your temper over your pipe----

[Illustration]

No pipe really ever rivalled the brier in my affections, though I can
recall a mad month when I fell in love