“Well, one day I was having a smoke out at the back, when I heard her coming, and I pulled out the stem in a hurry and put the bowl behind the water-butt and the stem under the house. Mother was coming round for a dipper of water. I got out of her way quick, for I hadn’t time to look innocent; but the bowl of the pipe was hot and she got a whiff of it. She went sniffing round, first on one side of the cask and then on the other, until she got on the scent and followed it up and found the bowl. Then I had only the stem left. She looked for that, but she couldn’t scent it. But I couldn’t get much comfort out of that. Have you got the matches?
“Then I gave it best for a time and smoked cigars. They were the safest and most satisfactory under the circumstances, but they cost me two shillings a week, and I couldn’t stand it, so I started a pipe again and then mother gave in at last. God bless her, and God forgive me, and us all—we deserve it. She’s been at rest these seventeen long years.”
Mitchell reflected.
“And what did your old man do when he found out that you were smoking?” I asked.
“The old man?”
He reflected.
“Well, he seemed to brighten up at first. You see, he was sort of pensioned off by mother and she kept him pretty well inside his income.... Well, he seemed to sort of brighten up—liven up—when he found out that I was smoking.”
“Did he? So did my old man, and he livened me up, too. But what did your old man do—what did he say?”
“Well,” said Mitchell, very slowly, “about the first thing he did was to ask me for a fill.”
He reflected.