'You do not smoke, captain—you a militaire of the First Empire. I wonder at that,' said O'Hara, languidly puffing the light cloud upwards in fantastic wreath from his Havana.
'No, mon enfant; there is a reason for it,' and the captain sighed.
O'Hara finished his cigar in peace—not that he did not notice the sigh of his guest, but he had too much delicacy to seek to fathom its cause.
'At least,' he said when he resumed conversation, 'you will not refuse to join me in a bumper.'
The captain shook his head.
'It is the first time I've caught you at my fireside, Captain Chauvin, and in my land we account it the reverse of good-fellowship not to hobnob at such a meeting. We shall drink together, as the Arabs break bread, to friendship and better knowledge of each other.'
The captain smiled—how charming is a smile on the face of manly masculine age!—and bowed.
'As it is the custom of your land, and as it is to be a gage of friendship, I even will,' said he, at the same time proffering a worn snuff-box, rudely wrought of horn, which he drew out of a gold case. 'Mon enfant, a pinch.'
O'Hara took of the snuff, though he found some difficulty in performing the operation of conveying the dust to his nostrils, sniffing it and afterwards sneezing. To tell the truth, he did not take snuff, considering it a dirty habit; but he felt constrained to do much to gratify the old man.
'Hola, you sneeze!' remarked the captain, surprised. 'It's rare fine snuff.'