"No, sir.--But yonder is Mr. Moccasin, who has lately set up, _secundum artem_, in the Indian business, having written two novels in that way already, and begun a third." "Are you all regularly employed, gentlemen?" "As regularly as inspiration points," said Mr. Pith. "Men of our occupation must make fair weather of it, or we had better be doing nothing." "So I often tell my owners, but 'go ahead' is the order. When I was a youngster, a ship remained in port for a fair wind; but, now, she goes to work and makes one. The world seems to get young, as I get old." "This is a _rum litterateur_," Gray whispered to Pindar. "It is an obvious mystification," was the answer; "poor Mrs. Legend has picked up some straggling porpoise, and converted him, by a touch of her magical wand, into a Boanerges of literature. The thing is as clear as day, for the worthy fellow smells of tar and cigar smoke. I perceive that Mr. Effingham is laughing out of the corner of his eyes, and will step across the room, and get the truth, in a minute." The rogue was as good as his word, and was soon back again, and contrived to let his friends understand the real state of the case. A knowledge of the captain's true character encouraged this trio in the benevolent purpose of aiding the honest old seaman in his wish to smoke, and Pith managed to give him a lighted paper, without becoming an open accessary to the plot. "Will you take a cigar yourself, sir," said the captain, offering his box to Mr. Pindar. "I thank you, Mr. Truck, I never smoke, but am a profound admirer of the flavour. Let me entreat you to begin as soon as possible." Thus encouraged, Captain Truck drew two or three whiffs, when the rooms were immediately filled with the fragrance of a real Havana. At the first discovery, the whole literary pack went off on the scent. As for Mr. Fun, he managed to profit by the agitation that followed, in order to escape to the three wags in the corner, who were enjoying the scene, with the gravity of so many dervishes. "As I live," cried Lucius Junius Brutus, "there is the author of a-- a--a--actually smoking a cigar!--How excessively _piquant!_" "Do my eyes deceive me, or is not that the writer of e--e--e-- fumigating us all!" whispered Miss Annual. "Nay, this cannot certainly be right," put in Florio, with a dogmatical manner. "All the periodicals agree that smoking is ungenteel in England." "You never were more mistaken, dear Florio," replied D.O.V.E. in a cooing tone. "The very last novel of society has a chapter in which the hero and heroine smoke in the declaration scene." "Do they, indeed!--That alters the case. Really, one would not wish to get behind so great a nation, nor yet go much before it. Pray, Captain Kant, what do your friends in Canada say; is, or is not smoking permitted in good society there? the Canadians must, at least, be ahead of us." "Not at all, sir," returned the editor in his softest tones; "it is revolutionary and jacobinical."