exhaling the smoke, was, like Mr. Weller's knowledge of London,
"extensive and peculiar." It was knowledge of this kind that gained
for a gallant reputation and respect by no means to be acquired by
mere scholarship and learning.

The satirical Dekker might class "tobacconists" with "feather-makers,
cobweb-lawne-weavers, perfumers, young country gentlemen and fools,"
but he bears invaluable witness to the devotion of the fashionable
men of the day to the "costlye and gentleman-like Smoak."

It was customary for a man to carry a case of pipes about with him. In
a play of 1609 ("Everie Woman in her Humour") there is an inventory of
the contents of a gentleman's pocket, with a value given for each
item, which displays certainly a curious assortment of articles. First
comes a brush and comb worth fivepence, and next a looking-glass worth
three halfpence. With these aids to vanity are a case of tobacco-pipes
valued at fourpence, half an ounce of tobacco valued at sixpence, and
three pence in coin, or, as it is quaintly worded, "in money and
golde." Satirists of course made fun of the smoker's pocketful of
apparatus. A pamphleteer of 1609 says: "I behelde pipes in his pocket;
now he draweth forth his tinder-box and his touchwood, and falleth to
his tacklings; sure his throat is on fire, the smoke flyeth so fast
from his mouth."

It may be noted, by the way, that the gallant had no hesitation about
smoking in the presence of ladies. Gostanzo, in Chapman's "All Fools,"
1605, says:

_And for discourse in my fair mistress's presence
I did not, as you barren gallants do,