"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.
"Above all, do not be inveigled into obtaining or, worse still, acting upon, a so-called 'licence to import.' It is a copper-bottomed have. I got one, when I was in Paris, gleefully ordered five thousand cigarettes from Bond Street, and started to count the days. I soon got tired of that. Three months later I got a dirty form from the Customs, advising me that there was a case of cigarettes, addressed to me, lying on the wharf at Toulon—yes, Toulon. They added that the charges to be paid before collection amounted to nine hundred francs by way of duty, eleven hundred and sixty-five by way of freight, and another three francs forty for every day they remained in the Custom House. In this connection, they begged to point out that they had already lain there for six weeks. Friend, can you beat it? But what, then, did I do? Why, I took appropriate action. I wrote at once, saying that, as I was shortly leaving for New York, I should be obliged if they would forward them via Liverpool to the Piraeus: I inquired whether they had any objection to being paid in roubles: and I advised them that I was shortly expecting a pantechnicon, purporting to contain furniture, but, in reality, full of mines. These I begged them to handle with great care and to keep in a temperature never higher than thirty-seven degrees Fahrenheit, as they were notoriously sensitive, and I particularly wished to receive them intact. I added that the pantechnicon would be consigned to me under another name. A fair knowledge of the French temperament suggests to me that the next two or three furniture vans which arrive at Toulon will be very stickily welcomed."
I threw away my cigarette and stared at the mountains.
"'Though every prospect pleases,'" I murmured, "'and only fags are vile.'"
"The only thing to do," said Adèle, "is to have a little sent out from
England from time to time, and ration yourselves accordingly."
Berry shook his head.
"Easier to stop altogether," he said. "Tobacco's not like food. (I'm not speaking of the stuff you get here. Some of that is extremely like food—of a sort. I should think it would, as they say, 'eat lovely.') Neither is it like liquor. You don't carry a flask or a bottle of beer in your hip-pocket—more's the pity. But nobody's equipment is complete without a case or a pouch. Why? So that the moment this particular appetite asserts itself, it can be gratified. No. Smoking's a vice; and as soon as you clap a vice in a strait-jacket, it loses its charm. A cigar three times a day after meals doesn't cut any ice with me." He tilted his hat over his eyes and sank his chin upon his chest. "And now don't talk for a bit. I want to concentrate."
Adèle laid a hand upon his arm.
"One moment," she said. "If the car arrives before you've finished, are we to interrupt you?"