rry my own defense along; I carry my own brand--twenty-seven
cents a barrel--and I live to see my family again. I may seem to light
his red-gartered cigar, but that is only for courtesy's sake; I smuggle
it into my pocket for the poor, of whom I know many, and light one of
my own; and while he praises it I join in, but when he says it cost
forty-five cents I say nothing, for I know better.

However, to say true, my tastes are so catholic that I have never seen
any cigars that I really could not smoke, except those that cost a
dollar apiece. I have examined those and know that they are made of
dog-hair, and not good dog-hair at that.

I have a thoroughly satisfactory time in Europe, for all over the
Continent one finds cigars which not even the most hardened newsboys in
New York would smoke. I brought cigars with me, the last time; I will
not do that any more. In Italy, as in France, the Government is the only
cigar-peddler. Italy has three or four domestic brands: the Minghetti,
the Trabuco, the Virginia, and a very coarse one which is a modification
of the Virginia. The Minghettis are large and comely, and cost three
dollars and sixty cents a hundred; I can smoke a hundred in seven days
and enjoy every one of them. The Trabucos suit me, too; I don't remember
the price. But one has to learn to like the Virginia, nobody is born
friendly to it. It looks like a rat-tail file, but smokes better, some
think. It has a straw through it; you pull this out, and it leaves a
flue, otherwise there would be no draught, not even as much as there is
to a nail. Some prefer a nail at first. However, I like all the French,
Swiss, German, and Italian domestic cigars, and have never cared to
inquire what they are made of; and nobody would know, anyhow, perhaps.
There is even a brand of European smoking-tobacco that I like. It is a
brand used by the Italian peasants. It is loose and dry and black, and
looks like tea-grounds. When the fire is applied it expands, and climbs
up and towers above the pipe, and presently tumbles off inside of one's
vest. The tobacco itself is cheap, but it raises the insurance. It is
as I remarked in the beginning--the taste for tobacco is a matter of
superstition. There are no standards--no real standards. Each man's
preference is the only standard for him, the only one which he can
accept, the only one which can command him.

THE BEE

It was Maeterlinck who introduced me to the bee. I mean, in the
p