The Idiot offered his visitors a cigar. "Thank you," said the Bibliomaniac, taking his and sniffing at it with all the airs and graces of a connoisseur. [Illustration: "'I DID NOT SMOKE UNTIL I WAS FIFTY'"] "I don't know but that I will join you," said Mr. Pedagog. "I did not smoke until I was fifty, and I suppose I ought not to have taken it up then, but I did, and I have taken a great deal of comfort out of it. My allowance is fifty-two cigars a year, one for each Sunday afternoon," he added, with a kindly smile. "Well, you want to look out you don't get smoker's heart," said the Idiot. "When a man plunges into a bad habit as rashly as that, he wants to pull up before it is too late." "I have felt no ill effects since the first one," rejoined Mr. Pedagog. "But you, my dear Idiot, how about your allowance? Is it still as great as ever? As I remember you in the old days you were something of a cigarette fiend." [Illustration: "'SMOKING KEEPS INSECTS FROM THE PLANTS'"] "I smoke just as much, but with this difference: I do not smoke for pleasure any more, Mr. Pedagog," the Idiot replied. "As a householder I smoke from a sense of duty. It keeps moths out of the house, and insects from the plants." [Illustration: "THE BIBLIOMANIAC WAS INVESTIGATING THE CONTENTS OF THE LOWER SHELVES"] The Bibliomaniac meanwhile had been investigating the contents of the lower shelves. "You've got a few rare things here, I see," he observed, taking up a volume of short sketches illustrated by Leech, in color. "This small tome is worth its weight in gold. Where did you pick it up?" "Auction," said the Idiot. "I didn't buy it by weight, either. I bought it by mistake. The colored pictures fascinated me, and when it was put up I bawled out 'fifteen.' Another fellow said 'sixteen.' I wasn't going to split nickels so I bid 'twenty.' So we kept at it until it was run up to 'thirty-six.' Then I thought I'd break the other fellow's heart by bidding fifty, and it was knocked down to me." "That's a stiff price, but on the whole it's worth it," said the Bibliomaniac, stroking the back of the book caressingly. "But," said Mr. Pedagog, "if you bid on it consciously where did the mistake come in?" The Idiot sighed. "I meant cents," he said, "but the other chap and the auctioneer meant dollars. I went up and planked down a half-dollar and was immediately made aware of my error." "But you could have explained," said Mr. Pedagog. [Illustration: "'I PREFERRED TO PAY THE $49.50'"] "Oh, yes," said the Idiot, "I _could_, but after all I preferred to pay the extra $49.50 rather than make a public confession of such infernal innocence before some sixty or seventy _habitues_ of a book-auction room."