The next moment I had taken the pipe from `Ally Sloper's' reluctant claw; and, filling it carefully, poking down the tobacco with the end of my finger just as father used to do, I struck a match and started smoking. I can't say I absolutely liked it at first, the strong narcotic, bitter taste of the tobacco, combined with the smell, making me feel rather giddy; while a gulp of smoke which went the wrong way caused me to cough. But, I stuck at it all the same, feeling that now at last I was on the highroad to being a man, just like those able-bodied seamen belonging to our ship who used to enjoy `blowing their cloud,' as they called it, of an evening on board the _Saint Vincent_ when work was done for the day. My complacency, too, was heightened by Jenny coming out presently, and the admiration she expressed at my dignified attitude under the mulberry-tree, leaning back in father's armchair, and smoking his very own churchwarden. "Good gracious me, Tom!" she exclaimed; Jack the thrush calling out "Jenny! Jenny! Jenny!" at sight of her, as he always did. "Why, you're just like daddy!" This made me feel proud, I can tell you; though old `Ally Sloper' didn't appear to like my performance, for I was amusing myself by puffing the smoke in his face, making him put up his lemon crest and spread out his collar-like feathers, screaming for mother like mad. I had `crossed the Rubicon,' however; and, ever after this, when at home of an afternoon, sometimes with Mick, who, of course, imitated me, sometimes without him on those occasions when he did not get permission to go ashore, I used to have a whiff at father's pipe on the sly-- without his knowledge though, you bet! By this means, I soon became a regular smoker; and, content no longer with an occasional draw at father's churchwarden, I bought a fine briar- root pipe for myself out of my pocket-money, which was increased by my becoming a first-class boy now to a shilling a week. This pipe I carried about with me, in company with an old brass tobacco- box I found in the mud one day at Point, stowed carefully away with all my other portable gear in my cap, according to the custom of the service. I got so bold at last, that even on board the training-ship I would take a stray whiff of a while, when I got into some snug corner on deck where I thought I would be unobserved; though my chum Mick, who didn't take kindly to the habit like myself, often cautioned me about the risk I ran in being caught.