Now, before my eyes had accustomed themselves to the subdued light, and I could see what company was about me, I had become aware of a strange odour in the air. It was the scent of a tobacco, happily unknown in Windlecombe: neither wholly Latakia nor Turkish, not honeydew alone nor red Virginia, cavendish nor returns, but a curious internecine blend of all these. I knew it at once to be something for which I have a constitutional loathing—one of the new town mixtures, wherein are confused and mutually stultified all the good smoking-weeds in the world. Looking more narrowly about me, after the usual greetings, I discovered a vast and elaborate meerschaum pipe in the corner, and behind it a little diffident smiling man. But this could not entirely account for the overpowering exotic reek in the room. I missed the familiar smell of our own good Windlecombe shag, although there were half a dozen other pipes in full blast round me. And then I realised the situation. The stranger had seduced all the company to his pestilent combination; and now, as I lowered at him through the haze, he was holding out his pouch even to me, who would not have touched his garbage if it had been the last pipe-fill left on earth. But he took my curt, almost surly refusal as if it were an intended kindness. ‘Ah! you do not smoke? Well: it does seem a kind of insult to the pure country air. But in towns, you know, what with the din and the dust, and the strain on one’s nerves, everybody— And of course I must not quarrel with my bread-and-butter!’ I produced my own pipe and pouch, and filled brutally under his very nose. Serenely he watched the operation, and without a trace of offence. ‘I am in the trade, as I was telling these gentlemen here when you came in. Do you know the Walworth Road, in London? My shop is just behind the Elephant, and any day you are passing, I— But wasn’t I glad to get away, if only for the few hours! And I do assure you, sir, I haven’t been out of London for nearly—nearly—’ ‘Twenty years, I suppose?’ He looked at me in placid surprise. ‘Lor’, how did you know that now? But it is quite true. Being single-handed, you see, it isn’t easy to— But I was glad, I tell you! And I had never seen a real country village in my life, until I got out of the train at Stavisham and walked on here. Isn’t it quiet! And how funny it seems—no asphalt-paving, and no wires running all ways over the house-tops, and the singing-birds all loose in the trees! And flowers! I suppose there is a law to prevent people picking ’em: there were no end along by the road I came.’ Somehow my heart warmed to this inconsiderable by-product of civilisation that had strayed amongst us; and presently, as much to my own surprise as his, I found myself loitering down the hill again, with him at my elbow, having promised to show him that there were other flowers in the country beside the dust-throttled daisies and dandelions of the roadside.