Frank's generous heart was touched by this new revelation of his friend's nature, and he grasped Bart's hand warmly.
"If I have helped you in any way, I am glad to know it," he said, earnestly.
"Well, you have; and you have taken demerit on my account without a murmur. It is selfish of me to cling to cigarettes when 'tobacco smoke in quarters' has been reported against us so many times. By jingoes! I'm going to swear off! They don't do a fellow any good, and they get an awful hold on one. It won't be easy for me to give them up; but I am going to do it. If you catch me smoking another of the things, you may kick me till there isn't a breath left in my body! That's business, and I will stick to it!"
"Good!" laughed Frank. "You have been smoking a good many of them lately, and I have noticed that you complained of your lungs. How can your lungs be in any condition when you are constantly inhaling so much of that smoke! I know of a young fellow with weak lungs who went into quick consumption, and the doctors said cigarettes were entirely responsible. He smoked a number of packages a day. When he started he simply smoked now and then, but the habit grew on him, and at last he was unable to break it."
"I believe any fellow can break off smoking them if he has any will-power of his own."
"I think a fellow should, but you may not find it as easy as you fancy."
"Oh, it will be easy enough for me. When I make up my mind to a thing, I never give up."
"Well, I sincerely trust it will prove so. Every one knows cigarettes are harmful. Yesterday I read in a paper about a boy in a New York hospital who was said to have a 'tobacco heart' from smoking cigarettes. By a tobacco heart it was meant that his heart was so badly affected that it did not perform its action regularly and properly. Sometimes he is convulsed with terrible pains, and gasps for breath. Nearly all the time he moans and begs for cigarettes; but the doctors say he must never smoke another one if he cares to live. As it is, if he should get up, his heart is so weakened that it may go on a strike any time and cause his death."
"Oh, say!" laughed Bart; "that settles it. Now, I never will smoke again. I mean it—you see if I don't."
"I sincerely hope you do. You may become one of the best athletes in this school. Your only trouble has been shortness of breath when you exercise heavily, and that came entirely from smoking. If you give it up, you will soon cease to be troubled that way."