"They're a mean lot," complained young Drew. Being cold he went over to the fire to warm himself. Then he drew a cigarette from one of his pockets, and struck a match. Tom Reade, slipping up behind the youngster, deftly took the cigarette away from him, tossing it into the fire.
"You'll have to quit that," Tom ordered sternly. "If I catch you trying to light a cigarette then out you go. We have a man here sick with lung trouble and with a high fever, and we don't propose to have any cigarette smoke around here."
"What am I going to do, then?" asked Alf, after a minute or so spent in a kind of trance.
"Do anything you please, as long as you keep quiet and don't light any cigarettes," Tom suggested, rummaging in the cupboard for a medicine chest that he knew was there.
"But I'll go to pieces, if I can't smoke a cigarette or two," whined the boy.
Tom had the medicine chest in his lap by this time. His hand touched a bottle of pellets labeled "quassia."
"Here, chew on one of these, and you won't need your cigarette,"
Tom suggested, passing over a pellet.
Alf mutely took the pellet, crushing it with his teeth.
"Ugh!" he uttered disgustedly.
"Don't spit it out," urged Tom. "It's the best thing possible to take the place of a cigarette. Keep it in your mouth until it is all dissolved."