Nevertheless, Abe was made to throw away his cigar, and it was not until the quartette were snugly enclosed in a first-class compartment en route to Paris that Abe felt safe to indulge in another cigar. He explored his pockets, but without result.
"Moe," he said, "do you got maybe another cigar on you?"
"I'm smoking the one which Leon give it me on the ship the other day," Moe replied. "Leon, be a good feller; give him a cigar."
"I give you my word, Moe, this is the last one," Leon replied as he bit the end off a huge invincible.
"You got something there bulging in your vest pocket, Abe. Why don't you smoke it?"
"That ain't a cigar," Abe answered; "that's a fountain pen."
"Smoke it anyhow," Leon advised; "because the only cigars you could get on this train is French Government cigars, and I'd sooner tackle a fountain pen as one of them rolls of spinach."
"That's a country!" Abe commented. "Couldn't even get a decent cigar here!"
"In Paris you could get plenty good cigars," Hymie Salzman said, and Hymie was right for, at the Gare St. Lazare, M. Adolphe Kaufmann-Levi, commissionnaire, awaited them, his pockets literally spilling red-banded perfectos at every gesture of his lively fingers. M. Kaufmann-Levi spoke English, French, and German with every muscle of his body from the waist up.
"Welcome to France, Mr. Potash," he said. "You had a good voyage, doubtless; because you Americans are born sailors."