"Well, my dear friend, you shouldn't call me a poor devil because I don't smoke; I just answered you, that's all; I will add that I should apply the same term to those young men who smoke all the time, who always have a pipe or cigar in their mouths. In the first place, they smell detestable; secondly, they ruin their lungs; and, lastly, they spend a great deal of money; it doesn't seem much, because it's only a little at a time; but the smallest sum, when you keep putting it out every minute or two, amounts to a good round sum at the end of a year. To workingmen especially, this habit of smoking is disastrous, and it has impoverished more than one family."
"Do you expect with your sermons to cure smokers of smoking? If you do, you're devilishly mistaken!"
"Oh! I have no idea of curing anybody. I simply tell you my opinion—opinions are free."
"But you see, Lucien, when you have once acquired the habit of smoking, that's the end of it; you can't give it up."
"I beg your pardon, my dear friend, but a man can break himself of any habit; all you need is a firm will; if you could make me believe otherwise, it would amount to convincing me that all men are maniacs, machines, automata which are obliged to do the same things over and over again; and that would make me grieve for mankind! I haven't mentioned all the fires and accidents caused by the carelessness of smokers. Why, Mademoiselle Juliette Mirotaine has a friend who had her dress all burned on the boulevard by a match which someone had thrown on the sidewalk without taking the trouble to step on it."
"I always step on mine!—But let's drop the subject. You're sure that you haven't so much as a pinch of tobacco in your pouch?"
"I haven't a pouch even. What the devil should I do with one?"
"He has no pouch! you hear him, great God, and you don't blast him!—Well, when I leave you, I am going to see some ladies—ladies, do you hear?—and I am very sure that they'll have some tobacco for me."
"That is possible, as there are some ladies who smoke nowadays."
"Yes, my dear friend. Oh! you needn't shrug your shoulders! The fair sex is for tobacco."