"I won't smoke, thanks," Bull replied without offense. "It's too near dinner."
"Dinner? There's a ha'f hour to the dressing bugle." The stranger returned the elaborate case stuffed full of large, expensive cigars to his pocket, and drew out a gold cigarette case instead. "Still I don't blame you a thing. Cigars? Me for a cigarette all the time. I don't guess any feller ever heard tell of tobacco, till he'd inhaled a good, plain Virginia Cigarette."
Bull looked on while the man wasted half-a-dozen matches lighting his beloved cigarette. He was not without interest. There was a slightly Jewish caste about his face which was frankly smiling, and lit with shrewd, twinkling dark eyes. He conveyed, too, somewhat blatantly, an atmosphere of abounding prosperity.
Bull laughed as the cigarette was finally lighted.
"That's better," he said. "Now—you can inhale."
"Sure I can." The man's smile was full of amiability. "Inhale anything. Say, up in the camps I've inhaled tea-leaves rolled in cracker paper before now. Ever hit a lumber camp?"
"Yes."
"But not out West? British Columbia?"
"No. Only Quebec."
The stranger shook his head disparagingly.