“Admiral Havenful, would you be so good as not to say that? You mean well, I know, but you can’t imagine the unpleasant sensations it causes—ugh!” said Mr. Toosypegs, with a wry face and a shudder. “You never were sea-sick, were you, Admiral Havenful? If you were, you don’t require to be told the pang that hearing that inflicts upon me. Therefore, please don’t say it again, for it gives me the most peculiar sensations that even was.”
The admiral grunted, and began smoking away like an ill-repaired chimney. Mr. Toosypegs sat uneasily on the edge of his chair, and continued to make a light and rather unsatisfactory repast off the head of his cane. Thus a mournful silence was continued for some fifteen or twenty minutes, and then the admiral took his pipe from his mouth, wiped it on the cuff of his sleeve, and without looking at Mr. Toosypegs, drew a long, placid breath, and held it out toward him with a laconic:
“Smoke?”
“Thankee, Admiral Havenful,” said Mr. Toosypegs, mournfully, “I never do.”
“More fool you, then,” said the admiral, gruffly, putting it in his own mouth again.
“Admiral Havenful,” said Mr. Toosypegs, in a large tone of voice, “I’m aware that I ain’t so wise as some of my friends could wish me; but, at the same time let me assure you that I don’t consider it a proof of wisdom to smoke at all. Smokers mean real well, I know, but it’s unpleasant to others, besides setting the in’ards in a dingy state, blacking the teeth, adulterating the breath, and often producing spontaneous combustion. Which means, Admiral Havenful,” said Mr. Toosypegs, elevating his cane to make the explanation, “getting worked up to a high degree of steam, and going off quite unexpected and promiscuous, some day, with a bang, and leaving nothing behind to tell the melancholy tale but a pinch of ashes, and that—”
“Oh, bother!” cut in the admiral, impatiently, “Belay your jawing tackle, young man, and let somebody else have sea-room. What port do you hail from last?”
“Admiral Havenful,” said Mr. Toosypegs, in no way offended at this cavalier mode of treating his digression on the evils of smoking, “if you mean by that where I was all morning, I’ve just come from Dismal Hollow. Aunt Prisciller wasn’t in—well, she wasn’t in very good spirits—and so I got out of the back door and come away. I was going to Old Barrens Cottage, only I saw Judge Lawless’ horse before the door, and so I came here.”
“Always welcome, Orlando, boy—always welcome,” said the admiral, briskly. “But hold on a minute! What the dickens brings that stiff bowspirit of a brother-in-law of mine so often to that cottage? Eh, Orlando?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure, Admiral Havenful,” said Mr. Toosypegs. “It’s real singular, too, because he never used to go there at all, and now his horse is at the door every day.”