“Ah! Joe, my boy, I see it all. You were unable to keep to the letter of your promise and you have been maintaining this bachelor’s hall ever since, where once a day you have crept in to have a good smoke.”
“Eric, what you say is true—I am a slave to the weed, and I dare not confess it to my wife. She despises such slaves. My ears have tingled many a time at the sarcastic way in which she referred to such poor devils, at the same time thanking heaven that she had a husband with stamina enough to give up the vile habit when he became civilized.”
Joe groaned and looked at his meerschaum pipe with a strange mixture of disgust and veneration.
He had a sympathetic auditor, for Eric was just as deep in the mud as he was in the mire, so far as smoking was concerned.
“What you say may be true, Joe, and yet it would be well for you to drop on your marrowbones at once and confess all to your wife.”
“Good heavens! do you mean it?”
“I do, indeed.”
“But I can’t—she will despise me. I had better make a determined effort to throw off this wretched habit, even if it kills me.”
“You make a mistake in one thing, old man. I believe your wife, instead of reproaching you, will throw her arms around your neck and tell you to smoke after this when you please.”
“Goodness gracious! why should she do this?”