nts to seduce its votaries. Generally, the
path to vice, or to a bad habit, is strewn with roses that hide their
thorns, but such is not the case with smoking; in order to acquire
this habit, a variety of disagreeable difficulties have to be
overcome, and a considerable amount of disgust and sickness must be
borne before the stomach is tutored to withstand the nauseous fumes."

"In point of fact," observed Wolston, "if, instead of being made part
and parcel of the appliances of a fashionable man, cigars and
meershaums were classed in the pharmacopoeia with emetics and
cataplasms, there is not a human being but would bemoan his fate if
compelled to undergo a dose."

"Just so," added Becker; "the great and sole attraction of tobacco to
young people consists in its being to them a forbidden thing; the
apple of Eve is of all time--it hangs from every tree, and takes
myriads of shapes. If I had the honor of being principal of a college
I should no more think of forbidding the pupils to use tobacco than I
should think of commanding them not to use the birch for purposes of
self-chastisement."

"Perhaps you would be quite right."

"Instead of lecturing them on the pernicious effects of tobacco, I
should hang up a pipe of punishment in the class-room, and oblige
offending pupils to inhale a fixed number of whiffs proportionate to
the gravity of their delinquency."

"An excellent idea," observed Wolston; "for it is often only necessary
to show some things in a different light in order to give them a new
aspect and value. This puts me in mind of an illustration in point;
these two girls, when children, were the parties concerned, and I will
relate the circumstance to you."

"In that case," said Mary, "I shall go and feed the fowls."

"And I," said Sophia, "must go and water the flowers."

"Oh, then," cried Jack laughing, "it is another doll story, is it?"

"No, Master Jack, it is not a doll story; and, besides, we girls were
no bigger at the time than that."

On saying this Sophia placed her two hands about a foot and a half
from the floor and then the two girls vanished.

"When Mary was about six years old," began Wolston, "a slight rash
threatened to develope itself, and the doctor ordered a small blister
to be applied to one of her arms. Now, there was likely to be some
difficulty about getting her to submit quietly to this operation, so,
after an instant's reflection, I called both her and her sister, and
told t