"Not even a cigarette."
"I was intending to ask you to go with me into the smoking-car for a short time. I smoke a good deal; it is my only vice. You know we must all have some vices."
Luke didn't see the necessity, but he assented, because it seemed to be expected.
"I won't be gone long. You'd better come along, too, and smoke a cigarette. It is time you began to smoke. Most boys begin much earlier."
Luke shook his head.
"I don't care to learn," he said.
"Oh, you're a good boy—one of the Sunday-school kind," said Coleman, with a slight sneer. "You'll get over that after a while. You'll be here when I come back?"
Luke promised that he would, and for the next half hour he was left alone. As his friend Mr. Coleman left the car, he followed him with his glance, and surveyed him more attentively than he had hitherto done. The commercial traveler was attired in a suit of fashionable plaid, wore a showy necktie, from the center of which blazed a diamond scarfpin. A showy chain crossed his vest, and to it was appended a large and showy watch, which looked valuable, though appearances are sometimes deceitful.
"He must spend a good deal of money," thought Luke. "I wonder that he should be willing to go to a two-dollar-a-day hotel."
Luke, for his own part, was quite willing to go to the Ottawa House. He had never fared luxuriously, and he had no doubt that even at the Ottawa House he should live better than at home.