“Honour bright, Lucy, it’s the being shut up so much, and the confounded mathematics and knowing that I never seem to satisfy the old man on top of that. If he’d only let me work at something I like, and learn to do something out-of-doors, but at this rate I think I’m getting consumption—” and the Cub gave a really dismal cough. “Of course a man must know how to count, and a few little things like that, no matter what he does,” said Lucy, so seriously that the boy did not at first realize that she was mocking him; “for whether you handle your own or some other person’s money, or eggs and potatoes, counting will be a painful necessity. “Oh, oh! what is this?” she exclaimed, as in handing her back her handkerchief the thumb and forefinger of his right hand caught her eye. These were stained a brownish yellow on the inside. Spreading the fingers apart, she looked the boy in the face, and he flushed scarlet under his freckles. “Been smoking cigarettes, on the sly, of course, and consequently in a hurry, swallowed the smoke, and sometimes chewed the butts to pulp! There is half the cause why your head won’t work right, as well as one reason why you are lanky and cough. See here, young man, do you know that only _what-is-its_ and _mistakes_ smoke cigarettes? _Men_ smoke pipes, or cigars if they can afford them; and I’m going to give you a pipe on your next birthday, with Pam’s head carved on a meerschaum bowl. I’ll get Charlie Ashton to order it to-morrow; he knows a fellow who carves pipes that are perfect dreams. Meantime not a whiff or sniff of a cigarette. Yes, of course it’s hard to stop, they all say that, but really, Cub, it’s a horrid trick. Yes, I know all about it; I tried cigarettes once myself. Empty your pockets quick and swear off.” At first the boy had looked annoyed, and a curious, obstinate expression, akin to that of a horse putting back his ears, crossed his features, flattening them; but it only lasted a moment. It was impossible to be angry with Lucy, for her tongue was pointed with common sense born of experience, and there was never anything censorious or priggish in her strictures. So the Cub produced two packages of cigarettes, an amber holder, and a silver match-box, and piled them in the outstretched hand of his mentor. “Keep the match-box, and we’ll give those things to the ‘grasshoppers’ that go around the street picking up cigar stumps with a spike in the end of a stick.” So saying, the vigorous young woman opened the window, and with a sidewise motion skittled the cigarettes through the air into the street below, much to the alarm of an old gentleman upon whose shoulders a shower from the first box fell. He had come out of the house to sample the weather and immediately returned for umbrella and goloshes, while the second box landed intact on the top of a passing hansom, much to the driver’s satisfaction.