"From my earliest youth, when I used surreptitiously to remove the
unsmoked ends of my father's cigars and break them up, and, in
hiding, smoke them in an old clay pipe which I had presented to me by
an ancient sea-captain of my acquaintance, I have been interested in
tobacco in all forms, even including these self-same despised
unsmoked ends; for they convey to my mind messages, sentiments,
farces, comedies, and tragedies which to your minds would never
become manifest through their agency."

The company drew closer together and formed themselves in a more
compact mass about the speaker. It was evident that they were
beginning to feel an unusual interest in this extraordinary person,
who had come among them unheralded and unknown. Even Shylock stopped
calculating percentages for an instant to listen.

"Do you mean to tell us," demanded Shakespeare, "that the unsmoked
stub of a cigar will suggest the story of him who smoked it to your
mind?"

"I do," replied the stranger, with a confident smile. "Take this
one, for instance, that I have picked up here upon the wharf; it
tells me the whole story of the intentions of Captain Kidd at the
moment when, in utter disregard of your rights, he stepped aboard
your House-boat, and, in his usual piratical fashion, made off with
it into unknown seas."

"But how do you know he smoked it?" asked Solomon, who deemed it the
part of wisdom to be suspicious of the stranger.

"There are two curious indentations in it which prove that. The