"They are?" asked Tom, opening his eyes wider. "Why, how does that happen?"
"Just because I am a smoker," returned the boy, with a sickly grin.
"You are?" gasped Tom. "At your age? Why, you little wretch!"
"That's all right, but please don't go on stringing me," pleaded the younger American. "Just pass over the papers and the tobacco pouch, and I'll get busy. I'm suffering for a smoke."
"Then you have my heartfelt sympathy," Tom assured him. "I hate to see any boy with that low-down habit, and I'm glad that I'm not in position to be able to encourage you in it. How long have you been smoking, Drew?"
Alf Drew shifted once more on his feet.
"'Bouter year," he answered.
"You began poisoning yourself at the age of thirteen, and you've lived a whole year? No; I won't say 'lived,' but you've kept pretty nearly alive. There isn't much real life in you, Drew, I'll be bound. Come here."
"Do I get the makings?" whined the boy.
"Come here!"