ellent leaf," offering your own with proper deprecations. This, and
many other excellent things, we learn from Mr. Apperson's noble book
"The Social History of Smoking," which should be prayer book and
breviary to every smoker con amore.

But the pipe rises perhaps to its highest function as the solace and
companion of lonely vigils. We all look back with tender affection on
the joys of tobacco shared with a boon comrade on some walking trip,
some high-hearted adventure, over the malt-stained counters of some
remote alehouse. These are the memories that are bittersweet beyond the
compass of halting words. Never again perhaps will we throw care over
the hedge and stride with Mifflin down the Banbury Road, filling the
air with laughter and the fumes of Murray's Mellow. But even deeper is
the tribute we pay to the sour old elbow of briar, the dented, blackened
cutty that has been with us through a thousand soundless midnights and a
hundred weary dawns when cocks were crowing in the bleak air and the pen
faltered in the hand. Then is the pipe an angel and minister of grace.
Clocks run down and pens grow rusty, but if your pouch be full your pipe
will never fail you.

How great is the witching power of this sovereign rite! I cannot even
read in a book of someone enjoying a pipe without my fingers itching to
light up and puff with him. My mouth has been sore and baked a hundred
times after an evening with Elia. The rogue simply can't help talking
about tobacco, and I strike a match for every essay. God bless him and
his dear "Orinooko!" Or Parson Adams in "Joseph Andrews"--he lights a
pipe on every page!

I cannot light up in a wind. It is too precious a rite to be consummated
in a draught. I hide behind a tree, a wall, a hedge, or bury my head in
my coat. People see me in the street, vainly seeking shelter. It is a
weakness, though not a shameful one. But set me in a tavern corner, and
fill the pouch with "Quiet Moments" (do you know that English mixture?)
and I am yours to the last ash.

I wonder after all what was the sweetest pipe I ever smoked? I have a
tender spot in memory for a fill of Murray's Mellow that Mifflin and I
had in the old smoking room of the Three Crowns Inn at Lichfield. We
weren't really thirsty, but we drank cider there in honour of Dr.
Johnson, sitting in his chair and beneath his bust. Then there were
those pipes we used to smoke at twilight sitting on the steps of 17
Heriot Row, the old home of