He dined with us the next evening, and was more grateful than I could reasonably expect. He handled the cigarette-case quite fondly.
"But what about its endowment?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" I said.
"Well, isn't a cigarette-case as eligible as a camera?" he said. "Its needs are, I consider, even greater. Presumably this gift is meant to facilitate my smoking, but an empty cigarette-case offers me nothing to smoke—it implies the heavy responsibility on an already overburdened man of keeping it filled. Now, suppose you complete the gift, as I did Jane's, by at least a year's endowment?"
I began to wish that the cigarette-cases had perished, but after his kindness to Jane I could hardly refuse.
"Well, what would it cost?" I said.
"That's easily reckoned," said Jane's uncle. "Say I smoke on an average fifteen cigarettes a day—that's 105 a week—that's—— Have you a piece of paper?"
It worked out at just under 5,500 cigarettes a year. At 8s. a hundred, twenty guineas would just cover the year's endowment. It seemed out of all proportion to the cost of the case.
"It's a good deal more than Jane's camera got," I protested.
"I told you its claims were greater. Of course you can't expect to get off as cheaply with a fixed habit of maturity as with the passing caprice of a kid. On the other hand you might have done worse. Suppose you had given me golf-clubs—there'd have been golf-balls, caddies, club subscription, lunches, fares and postage on correspondence with The Times. Compared with that, what is a paltry five guineas a quarter?"