has beautiful leaves, broad and green, with sometimes a red flower
at the top. Does the good God cause the filthy weeds to grow like
that? Are they not all clean that He has made? The potato--it is
not filthy. And the onion? It has a strong smell; but the
demoiselle Meelair she ate much of the onion--when we were not at
the Island House, but in the camp.

"And the smell of the tobacco--this is an affair of the taste. For
me, I love it much; it is like a spice. When I come home at night
to the camp-fire, where the boys are smoking, the smell of the pipes
runs far out into the woods to salute me. It says, 'Here we are,
Patrique; come in near to the fire.' The smell of the tobacco is
more sweet than the smell of the fish. The pig loves it not,
assuredly; but what then? I am not a pig. To me it is good, good,
good. Don't you find it like that, m'sieu'?

I had to confess that in the affair of taste I sided with Patrick
rather than with the pig. "Continue," I said--"continue, my boy.
Miss Miller must have said more than that to reform you."

"Truly," replied Pat. "On the second day we were making the lunch
at midday on the island below the first rapids. I smoked the pipe
on a rock apart, after the collation. Mees Meelair comes to me, and
says: 'Patrique, my man, do you comprehend that the tobacco is a
poison? You are committing the murder of yourself.' Then she tells
me many things--about the nicoline, I think she calls him; how he
goes into the blood and into the bones and into the hair, and how
quickly he will kill the cat. And she says, very strong, 'The men
who smoke the tobacco shall die!'"