He ensconced himself by the fireplace (out of deference to Snorky's estimate of the governor) and taking care not to inhale, smoked a cigarette to the end. But the result was unsatisfactory. He burned his fingers over the distasteful performance but acquired nothing in the way of a stain. He smoked a second and a third and then seized by an inspiration carefully rubbed in the moist ends.
When they walked back from the beach that morning Miss Jennie Tupper lost no time in opening up the fascinating subject of the sinful one's reclamation. Skippy had just brought forth a cigarette, tapped it professionally on his wrist and said:
"Don't mind, do you?"
"I do mind," said Miss Tupper severely. "Juth look at your hand. It ith thaking."
Skippy extended a palsied hand with the second and third fingers yellowed like a Chinaman's.
"It's worse this morning," he said carelessly with the sigh of one who contemplates stoically the approaching end.
"It's tewible, tewible to let a habit make a slave of you like that! At your age too! How did it ever get such a dweadful hold on you?"
"I began as a boy," said Skippy slowly, for he had still to work out the story. "You know how it is. Fast company, money in your pockets, no one caring. That's it, that's how it was."
He raised the cigarette to his lips.