"Quite. For my part, mind you, I prefer a good Muria—they're not so rich. It's purely a matter of taste, however, and certainly these are much more expensive."
"Indeed! Perhaps you can price them, Jim?"
"The cigar that I am smoking," said Hell-fire Jim, "would cost you a shilling at the club. If a shilling or two were an object, I suppose you could get them by the box at about ninety-two the hundred."
It was no longer what he said that astonished me, but the soft tone of his voice and the sudden absence from his conversation of the ingenious oath-combinations for which it was notorious. I sat bolt upright now, and must have shown my feelings pretty plainly, for he hastened to explain.
"I was once a waiter in a London club," he said. "That's how I know."
"Not a waiter, Jim," said I, looking him steadily in his sunken eyes. Then I begged his pardon. But Jim seemed pleased.
"Mean to say you think I was a member?"
"If you ask me, that was my idea."
"Then you were right. I was a member of several. Does it surprise you?" he added, with, I think, a rather wistful smile. I cannot be sure of that smile. His whole manner was agreeably free from sentiment.