Val looked him up and down. "That's good! I'm going in here to order some cigarettes, then come and have some lunch."
Jon thanked him. He might get news of HER from Val. The condition of England, that nightmare of its Press and Public men, was seen in different perspective within the tobacconist's which they now entered.
"Yes, sir; precisely the cigarette I used to supply your father with. Bless me! Mr. Montague Dartie was a customer here from—let me see—the year Melton won the Derby. One of my very best customers he was." And a faint smile illumined the tobacconist's face. "Many's the tip he's given me, to be sure! I suppose he took a couple of hundred of these every week, year in, year out, and never changed his cigarette. Very affable gentleman, brought me a lot of custom. I was sorry he met with that accident. One misses an old customer like him."
Val smiled. His father's decease had closed an account which had been running longer, probably, than any other; and in a ring of smoke puffed out from that time-honoured cigarette he seemed to see again his father's face, dark, good-looking, moustachioed, a little puffy, in the only halo it had earned. His father had his fame here, anyway—a man who smoked two hundred cigarettes a week, who could give tips, and run accounts for ever! To his tobacconist a hero! Even that was some distinction to inherit!
"I pay cash," he said; "how much?"
"To HIS son, sir, and cash—ten and six. I shall never forget Mr. Montague Dartie. I've known him stand talkin' to me half an hour. We don't get many like him now, with everybody in such a hurry. The war was bad for manners, sir—it was bad for manners. You were in it, I see."
"No," said Val, tapping his knee, "I got this in the war before. Saved my life, I expect. Do you want any cigarettes, Jon?"
Rather ashamed, Jon murmured: "I don't smoke, you know," and saw the tobacconist's lips twisted, as if uncertain whether to say "Good God!" or "Now's your chance, sir!"
"That's right," said Val; "keep off it while you can. You'll want it when you take a knock. This is really the same tobacco, then?"
"Identical, sir; a little dearer, that's all. Wonderful staying power—the British Empire, I always say."