But on the third of July, as “Johnny came marching home,” he met Jim at the usual corner, and Jim had a long cigar in his mouth! Johnny felt a good deal awed. He thought Jim looked very manly indeed.
“Have a cigar?” asked Jim affably. “One of my best customers gave me this,” he added, “and the one I’m smoking, and I tell you it’s not many fellows I’d offer this to, for they’re prime! It was a regular joke on him—he’s always poking fun at me, and this morning, when I said I’d give anything to be a sailor, he just pulls these out of his pocket, and says, seriously, ‘Smoke these, my boy, and you’ll be as sure you’re at sea as you ever will if you really get there!’ He thought I wouldn’t take ’em, but I did,” and Jim chuckled, “I thanked him kindly, and told him I’d learned to smoke years ago!”
“Learned?” said Johnny, “why, what is there to learn? It looks easy enough.”
“So it is,” said Jim, with another chuckle, “it’s like what the Irishman said about his fall; ‘Sure, it’s not the fall, it’s the fetch up that hurts!’ I wasn’t sea-sick after that first cigar? Oh, no! not at all!” and he gave an indescribable wink.
All this time Johnny held the cigar doubtfully in his hand. Was it worth while deliberately to make himself “sea-sick?” That long, coarse, black thing did not look as if it would taste nice.
“What are you waiting for?” asked Jim, “a light? Here’s one,” and he drew a match from his pocket, struck it, and handed it to Johnny, who, prevented by a false and foolish shame, from saying what was in his mind, lighted the cigar, hastily thanked Jim, and walked off, smoking.
But he had not gone a block before a queer, dizzy feeling, and a bitter, puckery taste in his mouth, which reminded him of a green persimmon, made him resolve to finish his cigar another time; so he put it out, wrapped it carefully in paper, thrust it into his trousers pocket, and then hurried home.
When he kissed his mother, she exclaimed, “Why, Johnny! You smell exactly as if you had been smoking!”