Having set it going to his satisfaction, he removed it for a moment, and, emitting a graceful wreath of smoke, resumed—“Capital good cigars these—came from Fribourg and Pontet’s—I never smoke any others—better change your mind and take one, Mr.———, ‘pon my word your name has escaped me.”
“Are you quite certain you ever knew it?” inquired Ernest, whilst a smile of quiet intelligence curled his handsome mouth.
In no degree disconcerted, Master Wilfred took another long pull at his cigar ere he replied, “Not to be done, eh, sir? Well, I respect a man all the more for being unpumpable; dodginess, in all its branches, is the virtue I most venerate.”
“And what is dodginess, please, Cousin Wilfred?” inquired Hugh, upon whose youthful intelligence slang was, for the first time, dawning with all its fascinating eloquence.
“Dodginess, my verdant young relative, is a psychological attribute compounded of equal portions of presence of mind and fertility of resource, which enables every ‘cove’ (cove is a generic appellation for indiscriminate male humanity) thus happily endowed, to rise superior to all the minor obstacles of existence; as, for example, when I, trying to pump the gentleman opposite in regard to his patronymic, was by him foiled in my attempt, and convicted of the logical absurdity of having declared myself to have forgotten that which I had never known; or, again,—when, this morning, my governor, your venerable uncle, who, benighted innocent that he is, hopes to coerce me into giving up smoking, took from me my cigar-case, but allowed me to regain it by picking his pocket thereof, while squabbling with the cabman for an extra sixpence;—mind you recollect all this; for, in these days slag is completely the language of fashionable life. Were I that epitome of slowness, ‘the father of a family,’ I should have the young idea taught to clothe itself in slang from the cradle upwards. And now, as I’ve a notion the train is approaching a station, and my cigar has arrived at its terminus, you shall witness a specimen of dodginess with your own eyes;—be silent, and observe me attentively—ahem!”
He then flung the end of his cigar out of window, and, assuming an air of great consequence, waited till the train stopped; the moment he did so, he summoned a porter.
“Porter, open the door!” The man obeyed. “Put your head in and tell me what this carriage smells of.”
The porter, looking surprised at the request, complied—“It smells tobaccer-efied like to me,” he observed, after a minute’s investigation.
“Tobaccer-efied, indeed!” repeated Wilfred Jacob, in a tone of the deepest indignation; “some brute has been smoking in this carriage, I’m certain of it! a first-class carriage, too. I tell you what, porter, when gentlemen pay for the comfort and convenience of a first-class carriage, they expect to enjoy what they pay for, and not to be poisoned alive with the odour of tobacco.”
“Smoking ain’t never allowed in the fust class, sir,” pleaded the embarrassed porter.