"Suppose 'm me no give?" the steward impatiently temporized.

For reply, the old man half-turned, and, on his crutch, swinging his
stump of leg in the air, began sidling hippity-hop into the grass hut.

"All right," Daughtry cried hastily. "Me give 'm you smoke 'm quick
fella."

He dipped into a side coat-pocket for the mintage of the Solomons and
stripped off a stick from the handful of pressed sticks. The old man was
transfigured as he reached avidly for the stick and received it. He
uttered little crooning noises, alternating with sharp cries akin to
pain, half-ecstatic, half-petulant, as he drew a black clay pipe from a
hole in his ear-lobe, and into the bowl of it, with trembling fingers,
untwisted and crumbled the cheap leaf of spoiled Virginia crop.

Pressing down the contents of the full bowl with his thumb, he suddenly
plumped upon the ground, the crutch beside him, the one limb under him so
that he had the seeming of a legless torso. From a small bag of twisted
coconut hanging from his neck upon his withered and sunken chest, he drew
out flint and steel and tinder, and, even while the impatient steward was
proffering him a box of matches, struck a spark, caught it in the tinder,
blew it into strength and quantity, and lighted his pipe from it.

With the first full puff of the smoke he gave over his moans and yelps,
the agitation began to fade out of him, and Daughtry, appreciatively
waiting, saw the trembling go out of his hands, the pendulous
lip-quivering cease, the saliva stop flowing from the corners of his
mouth, and placidity come into the fiery remnants of his eyes.