"I---I have heard folks say so," nodded the boy.

"And you didn't believe them?"

"I---I don't know."

"Why did you ever take up smoking?"

"All men smoke," argued Alf Drew.

"Lie number one. All men _don't_ smoke," Tom corrected him.
"But I think I catch the drift of your idea. If you smoke you
think men will look upon you as being more manly. That's it, it?"

"It must be manly, if men do it," Alf argued.

"You funny little shaver," laughed Tom, good-humoredly. "So you
think that, when men see you smoking cigarettes, they immediately
imagine you to be one of them? Cigarette-smoking, for a boy of
fourteen, is the short cut to manhood, I suppose."

Tom laughed long, heartily, and with intense enjoyment. At last
he paused, to remark, soberly:

"Answering your first question, Drew, I haven't the 'makings.'
I never did carry them and never expect to."

"What do you smoke then?" queried Alf, in some wonder. "A pipe?"

"No; I never had that vice, either. I don't use tobacco. For