without becoming
an open accessary to the plot.

"Will you take a cigar yourself, sir," said the captain, offering his
box to Mr. Pindar.

"I thank you, Mr. Truck, I never smoke, but am a profound admirer of
the flavour. Let me entreat you to begin as soon as possible."

Thus encouraged, Captain Truck drew two or three whiffs, when the
rooms were immediately filled with the fragrance of a real Havana. At
the first discovery, the whole literary pack went off on the scent.
As for Mr. Fun, he managed to profit by the agitation that followed,
in order to escape to the three wags in the corner, who were enjoying
the scene, with the gravity of so many dervishes.

"As I live," cried Lucius Junius Brutus, "there is the author of a--
a--a--actually smoking a cigar!--How excessively _piquant!_"

"Do my eyes deceive me, or is not that the writer of e--e--e--
fumigating us all!" whispered Miss Annual.

"Nay, this cannot certainly be right," put in Florio, with a
dogmatical manner. "All the periodicals agree that smoking is
ungenteel in England."

"You never were more mistaken, dear Florio," replied D.O.V.E. in a
cooing tone. "The very last novel of society has a chapter in which
the hero and heroine smoke in the declaration scene."

"Do they, indeed!--That alters the case. Really, one would not wish
to get behind so great a nation, nor yet go much before it. Pray,
Captain Kant, what do your friends in Canada say; is, or is not
smoking permitted in good society there? the Canadians must, at
least, be ahead of us."

"Not at all, sir," returned the editor in his softest tones; "it is
revolutionary and jacobinical."

But the ladies prevailed, and, by a process that is rather peculiar
to what may be called a "credulous" state of society, they carried
the day. This process was simply to make one fiction authority for
another. The fact that smoking was now carried so far in England,
that the clergy actually used cigars in the pulpits, was affirmed on
the authority of Mr. Truck himself, and, coupled with his present
occupation, the point was deemed to be settled. Even Florio yielded,
and his plastic mind soon saw a thousand beauties in the usage, that
had hitherto escaped it. All the literati drew round the captain in a
circle, to enjoy the spectacle, though the honest old mariner
contrived to throw out such volumes of vapour as to keep them at a
safe distance. His four demure-looking neighbours got behind the
barrier of smok