small deposit of
tobacco, and thus I could generally get together a pipeful at times
when other persons would be destitute. I never told my sister that my
pouch was once all but lost, but ever after that, when she complained
that I had never even tried to do without it, I smiled tenderly.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VI.

MY SMOKING-TABLE.

[Illustration]

Had it not been for a bootblack at Charing Cross I should probably never
have bought the smoking-table. I had to pass that boy every morning. In
vain did I scowl at him, or pass with my head to the side. He always
pointed derisively (as I thought) at my boots. Probably my boots were
speckless, but that made no difference; he jeered and sneered. I have
never hated any one as I loathed that boy, and to escape him I took to
going round by the Lowther Arcade. It was here that my eye fell on the
smoking-table. In the Lowther Arcade, if the attendants catch you
looking at any article for a fraction of a second, it is done up in
brown paper, you have paid your money, and they have taken down your
address before you realize that you don't want anything. In this way I
became the owner of my smoking-table, and when I saw it in a brown-paper
parcel on my return to my chambers I could not think what it was until
I cut the strings. Such a little gem of a table no smokers should be
without; and I am not ashamed to say that I was in love with mine
as soon as I had fixed the pieces together. It was of walnut, and
consisted mainly of a stalk and two round slabs not much bigger than
dinner-plates. There were holes in the centre of these slabs for the
stalk to go through, and the one slab stood two feet from the floor, the
other a foot higher. The lower slab was fitted with a walnut tobacco-jar
and a pipe-rack, while on the upper slab were exquisite little recesses
for cigars, cigarettes, matches, and ashes. These held respectively
three cigars, two cigarettes, and four wax vestas. The smoking-table
was an ornament to any room; and the first night I had it I raised my
eyes from my book to look at it every few minutes. I got all my pipes
together and put them in the rack; I filled the jar with tobacco, the
recesses with three cigars, two cigarettes, and four matches; and then
I thought I would have a smoke. I swept my hand confidently along the
mantelpiece, but it did not stop at a pipe. I rose and looked for a
pipe. I had half a dozen, but not one was to be seen--none on the