od, even in the abstract form of an idea, could
come out of it."

"That's a very nice thought," said the Poet. "I'd like to put that into
verse. The idea of a people dividing up their surplus of wealth among the
less successful strugglers is beautiful."

"You can have it," said the Idiot, with a pleased smile. "I don't write
poetry of that kind myself unless I work hard, and I've found that when
the poet works hard he produces poems that read hard. You are welcome to
it. Another time I was dreaming over my cigar, after a day of the hardest
kind of trouble at the office. Everything had gone wrong with me, and I
was blue as indigo. I came home here, lit a cigar, and threw myself down
upon my bed and began to puff. I felt like a man in a deep pit, out of
which there was no way of getting. I closed my eyes for a second, and to
all intents and purposes I lay in that pit. And then what did tobacco do
for me? Why, it lifted me right out of my prison. I thought I was sitting
on a rock down in the depths. The stars twinkled tantalizingly above me.
They invited me to freedom, knowing that freedom was not attainable. Then
I blew a ring of smoke from my mouth, and it began to rise slowly at
first, and then, catching in a current of air, it flew upward more
rapidly, widening constantly, until it disappeared in the darkness above.
Then I had a thought. I filled my mouth as full of smoke as possible, and
blew forth the greatest ring you ever saw, and as it started to rise I
grasped it in my two hands. It struggled beneath my weight, lengthened
out into an elliptical link, and broke, and let me down with a dull thud.
Then I made two rings, grasping one with my left hand and the other with
my right--"

[Illustration: "I GRASPED IT IN MY TWO HANDS"]

"And they lifted you out of the pit, I suppose?" sneered the
Bibliomaniac.

"I do not say that they did," said the Idiot, calmly. "But I do know that
when I opened my eyes I wasn't in the pit any longer, but up-stairs in my
hall-bedroom."

"How awfully mysterious!" said the Doctor, satirically.

"Well, I don't approve of smoking," said Mr. Whitechoker. "I agree with
the London divine who says it is the pastime of perdition. It is not
prompted by natural instincts. It is only the habit of artificial
civilization. Dogs and horses and birds get along without it. Why
shouldn't man?"

"Hear! hear!" cried Mr. Pedagog, clapping his hands approvingly.

"Where? where?" put in the Idiot. "T