After dinner was concluded, and thanks had been returned, Jack Brace leaned his back against one of the descending branches of the banyan-tree, and with a look of supreme satisfaction drew forth a short black pipe.
At sight of this the countenance of Adams flushed, and his eyes almost sparkled.
“There it is again,” he murmured; “the old pipe once more! Let me look at it, Jack Brace; it’s not the first by a long way that I’ve handled.”
Jack handed over the pipe, a good deal amused at the manner of his host, who took the implement of fumigation and examined it carefully, handling it with tender care, as if it were a living and delicate creature. Then he smelt it, then put it in his mouth and gave it a gentle draw, while an expression of pathetic satisfaction passed over his somewhat care-worn countenance.
“The old taste, not a bit changed,” he murmured, shutting his eyes. “Brings back the old ships, and the old messmates, and the old times, and Old England.”
“Come, old feller,” said Jack Brace, “if it’s so powerful, why not light it and have a real good pull, for old acquaintance sake?”
He drew from his pocket flint and tinder, matches being unknown in those days, and began to strike a light, when Adams took the pipe hastily from his mouth and handed it back.
“No, no,” he said, with decision, “it’s only the old associations that it calls up, that’s all. As for baccy, I’ve bin so long without it now, that I don’t want it; and it would only be foolish in me to rouse up the old cravin’. There, you light it, Jack. I’ll content myself wi’ the smell of it.”
“Well, John Adams, have your way. You are king here, you know; nobody to contradict you. So I’ll smoke instead of you, if these young ladies won’t object.”
The young ladies referred to were so far from objecting, that they were burning with impatience to see a real smoker go to work, for the tobacco of the mutineers had been exhausted, and all the pipes broken or lost, before most of them were born.