"A whiff! Oh! I see you've been wasting your tin on cigars--_alias_,
rolled cabbage-leaves. Oh fumose puer!"

"Well, will you have one?"

"If you like," said Montagu, wavering; "but I don't much care to smoke."

"Well, _I_ shall, at any rate," said Eric, keeping off the wind with his
cap, as he lighted a cigar, and began to puff.

They strolled on in silence; the smoking didn't promote conversation,
and Russell thought he had never seen his friend look so ridiculous, and
entirely unlike himself, as he did while strutting along with the weed
in his mouth. The fact was, Eric didn't guess how much he was hurting
Edwin's feelings, and he was smoking more to "make things look like the
holidays," by a little bravado, than anything else. But suddenly he
caught the expression of Russell's face, and instantly said--

"O, I forgot, Edwin; I know you don't like smoking;" and he instantly
flung the cigar over the hedge, being really rather glad to get rid of
it. With the cigar, he seemed to have flung away the affected manner he
displayed just before, and the spirits of all three rose at once.

"It isn't that I don't _like_ smoking only, Eric, but I think it
wrong--for _us_ I mean."

"O, my dear fellow! surely there can't be any harm in it. Why everybody
smokes."

"It may be all very well for men, although I'm not so sure of that. But,