"That's so. Well, asparagus with butter-sauce."
"Grilled sweets, coffee, Benedictine, and cigars."
"And a magnum of '1900' to start off with!" Ryanne, with a sudden change of mood, scooped up the cards and flung them at George's head. "Do you want us both to become gibbering idiots?"
George ducked. He and the boys gathered in the fluttering paste-boards.
"You're right, Percival," Ryanne admitted humbly. "It will not hurt us to talk out loud, and we are all brooding too much. I am crazy for the want of tobacco. I'd trade the best dinner ever cooked for a decent cigar."
George put a hand reluctantly into his pocket. He brought forth, with extreme gentleness, a cigar, the wrapper of which was broken in many places. "I've saved this for days," he said. With his pen-knife he sawed it delicately into two equal parts, and gave one to Ryanne.
"You're a good fellow, Jones, and I've turned you a shabby trick. I shan't forget this bit of tobacco."
"It's the last we've got. The boys, you know, refuse a pull at the water-pipe; defiles 'em, they say. Funny beggars! And if they gave us tobacco, we shouldn't have paper or pipes."
"I always carry a pipe, but I lost it in the shuffle. I never looked upon smoking as a bad habit. I suppose it's because I was never caught before without it. And it is a bad habit, since it knocks up a chap this way for the lack of it. Where do you get your club-steaks in old N. Y.?"
And for an hour or more they solemnly discussed the cooking here and there upon the face of the globe.