With a sigh, I opened my case and took out a cigarette. Then I handed the case to Berry. The latter waved it aside and wrinkled his nose. "I'm through," he said shortly. "Offal's all very well in an incinerator, if the wind's the right way, but, as a substitute for tobacco--well, it soon palls." I closed the case and slid it into my pocket. "I must confess," I said, "that I'm nearing the breaking-point." "Well, I wish you'd be quick and reach it," said Adèle. "How you can go on at all, after finding that fly, I can't imagine." She shuddered at the memory. Less than a week ago a suspicious protuberance in the line of a local cigarette had attracted my attention. Investigation had revealed the presence of a perfect, if somewhat withered, specimen of the _musca domestica_ imbedded in the vegetation which I had been proposing to smoke. This was too much for the girls, none of whom had since touched a cigarette, and when my brother-in-law suggested that the fly had probably desired cremation, and urged that, however obnoxious, the wishes of the dead should be respected, Daphne had reviled her husband and requested Jonah to open the door, so that she could sit in a draught. We were in a bad way. Now that we were in France, the difficulty of obtaining cigars, cigarettes, or tobacco, such as we were used to enjoy, seemed to be insuperable. The prohibitive duty, the uncertainty and by no means infrequent failure of the French mails, brought the cost of procuring supplies from England to a figure we could not stomach: attempts at postal smuggling had ended in humiliating failure: the wares which France herself was offering were not at all to our taste. We were getting desperate. Jonah, who had smoked the same mixture for thirteen years, was miserable. Berry's affection for a certain brand of cigars became daily more importunate. My liver was suffering.... "We'd better try getting a licence to import," I said heavily. "It may do something." "Ah," said my brother-in-law, drawing a letter from his pocket, "I knew I had some news for you. I heard from George this morning. I admit I don't often take advice, but this little missive sounds an unusually compelling call.