“It’s hard to say,” answered Rooney. “Perhaps he’d blow up or catch fire if he were to try. It might be dangerous!”
“See,” exclaimed Okiok, in an eager whisper; “he is going to let Ippegoo taste it.”
Rooney looked on with increased interest, for at that moment Kajo, having had enough, offered the pipe to his friend, who accepted it with the air of a man who half expected it to bite and put the end in his mouth with diffidence. He was not successful with the first draw, for instead of taking the smoke merely into his mouth he drew it straight down his throat, and spent nearly five minutes thereafter in violent coughing with tears running down his cheeks.
Kajo spent the same period in laughing, and then gravely and carefully explained how the thing should be done.
Ippegoo was an apt scholar. Almost immediately he learned to puff, and in a very short time was rolling thick white clouds from him like a turret-gun in action. Evidently he was proud of his rapid attainments.
“Humph! That won’t last long,” murmured Rooney to his companion.
“Isn’t it good?” said Kajo to Ippegoo.
“Ye–es. O yes. It’s good; a–at least, I suppose it is,” replied the youth, with modesty.
A peculiar tinge of pallor overspread his face at that moment.
“What’s wrong, Ippegoo?”