The Idiot

eptionally good quality that very few remarks had been

y?" he asked, as the Idiot took one from his po

id the Idiot. "Why? Do you thin

period will be in about eight hundred and sixty years from now, the way I calculate, and it seemed to me that, judgin

" said the Idiot. "I think I'm good for

case," retorted the Doctor, whose feeling towa

probably live five year

curled, but he

. Pedagog, with a chuckl

alive all this time then, Mr

bacco in every form, for o

hat's really a bad habit, and I marvel

iot over the rims of his glasses, as was his wo

?" he aske

kept you lingering in this vale of tears was that you have always chewed tobacco.

d Mr. Pedagog, getting red in the face. "I n

was a shock to me, because, with all my weaknesses and bad habits, I think tobacco-chewing unutterably bad. The worst part of it is that you chew it in every form. A man who chews chewing-tobacco only may some time t

know well enough that I never said the wo

about it? We believe you to be a person of the strictest veracity, but when you say a thing before a tableful of listeners one minute, and deny it the next, we are forced to one of two conclusions, neither of which is pleasing. We must conclude that either, repenting your confession, you sacrifice the truth, or that the habit to which you have confesse

on being so great that he seemed to be unable to find the

of anything that is more satisfying to the tired man than to lie back on a sofa, of an evening, and puff clouds of smoke and rings into the air. One of the finest dreams I ever had came from smoking. I had blown a great mountain of smoke out into the room, and it seemed to become real, and I climbed to its summit and saw the most beautiful country at my feet-a country in which all men were happy, where ther

that into verse. The idea of a people dividing up their surplu

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 i

IT IN MY

of the pit, I suppose?"

"But I do know that when I opened my eyes I wasn't in

rious!" said the D

ys it is the pastime of perdition. It is not prompted by natural instincts. It is only the habit

r. Pedagog, clapping

an educated horse, or an uneducated one, for that matter, that had even had the chance to smoke, or the kind of mouth that would enable him to do it in case he had the chance. I have also observed that horses don't read books, that birds don't eat mutto

" put in the Lawyer, w

se the beasts and the birds do without these things man ought to. Fish don't smoke, neither do t

ING ISN'T A

astime of perdition," i

. "Smoking is the business of perd

!" remonstrat

hear! I presume,

said enough!" remarked

ed, not to say gratified. But really, Mr. Pedagog," he added, rising t

ng. He was desirous that Mr. Pedagog should not be further irri

ng easily over the back of

if he could get along without it y

ut it if he knew what good t

introduce him to it?

year he discovered that during the whole period of his manhood he had been deprived through ignorance of so great a blessing as a good cigar, he'd become like the rest of us, living in an

-hour in making personal statements to the remaining boarders to the effect tha

of them were alread