"But I haven't any pipe."
"No pipe? you surprise me! It's less expensive than cigars. Well, then, give me a cigar—as dry a one as you can."
"I haven't any cigars either."
"The devil! I seem to have caught you at low tide. In that case, pass me your tobacco pouch and I'll make a cigarette."
"I am distressed, my dear Dodichet, to be obliged to refuse you again; but I haven't a particle of tobacco here."
"No tobacco! you haven't any tobacco! That is a good one! Do you smoke straw, then? For, of course, you must smoke something?"
"Why so? as a matter of fact, I don't smoke at all. I have neither the time nor the inclination; and, frankly, I don't see the necessity."
"You don't smoke—at your age! You poor devil! you must be horribly bored!"
"That's where you are mistaken; I am never bored, for I am always at work. Why do so many men smoke? Because they have nothing to do, and don't know how to employ their time, which seems to them murderously long; so they smoke and imagine that they're doing something, that they are busy. That is a wretched occupation which serves only to encourage indolence!"
"I say, Lucien, do you know that you tire me with your moral reflections about smokers?"