find any pipe but the long one. What was the result? Why, he wrote
such a humorous description of the play that everybody thought 'East
Lynne' was a farce comedy and, when the performance closed on the
following night, two-thirds of the audience wanted their money back.

"His worst crack, though, was when a man of great local prominence,
who stood high with the people, died and it fell to G.'s lot to
describe the funeral ceremonies and eulogize the deceased. G.'s
mother-in-law had just arrived and the poor fellow was so badly
rattled that he got hold of the 'bull-dog' instead of the brier and
made the Hon. G. out the grandest rascal who had ever preyed upon the
vitals of a law-abiding community. The only thing that saved his neck
this time was the fact that it all turned out to be true and his paper
got the credit of a 'scoop.' After that he had a little case made to
hold all four of his pipes, with a strap to go around his neck--and I
guess he sleeps with it now.

"They say that Guttenberg conceived the notion of the printing press
while taking an after-dinner smoke; that Stephenson's ideas of steam
locomotion came to him through the curling wreaths of his favorite
Virginia; and that Morse figured out the telegraph with a pipe in
his mouth. I never could corroborate these statements, though I don't
doubt them a bit. But, be that as it may, the man, woman or child who
tries to deprive us of the solace and inspiration of tobacco, is like
the goat that tried to butt a train off the track. He is not only
trifling with one of the greatest factors in civilization, but he is
toying with a lost cause."

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