Now Jeffard's poverty-pride was fire-new as yet, and though the smell of Bartrow's cigar made him faint with desire, he refused the gift.
"Haven't quit, have you?" Bartrow demanded.
"No—yes; that is, I have for the present. I'm not feeling very well this morning."
"You look it; every inch of it. Let's go around and see what the money people are doing. Maybe that'll chirk you up a bit."
Jeffard yielded, partly because Bartrow's impetus was always of the irresistible sort, and partly because he could think of no plausible objection on the spur of the moment. Bartrow talked cheerily all the way around to the Mining Exchange, telling of his claims and prospects in Chaffee County, and warming to his subject as only a seasoned Coloradoan can when the talk is of "mineral" and mining. Jeffard, being hungry, and sick with a fierce longing for tobacco, said little, and was duly thankful that Bartrow required no more than a word now and then to keep him going. None the less he watched narrowly for a chance to escape, and was visibly depressed when none offered.
In the crowded Exchange the poverty-pride began to lose the fine keenness of its edge. The atmosphere of the room was pungent with cigar smoke, and the tobacco craving rose up in its might and smote down Jeffard's self-respect.
"If you'll excuse me a minute, Dick, I believe I'll go out and get a cigar as a measure of self-defense," he said; and Bartrow supplied his need, as a matter of course. It was a shameful subterfuge, and he loathed himself for having descended to it. Nevertheless, he took the cigar which Bartrow made haste to offer, and lighted it. The first few whiffs made him dizzy, but afterward he was better company for the enthusiast.
While they were talking, the elderly man with the bit of quartz on his watch-chain came in, and Jeffard inquired if Bartrow knew him.