“I have seen lips that—”
“Howling and so forth.” And he turned over on his back and commenced pulling away at his pipe.
“I think she likes you.”
Charley pursed up his mouth, and, taking aim, with one eye, at a spot on the ceiling, projected at it a fine-spun thread of smoke. I detected a tremor in his extended lips.
“I may say I know she likes you.”
With an explosive chuckle the pucker instantly dissolved. I had taken him at a disadvantage. His features snapped back into position as suddenly as those of a rubber mask.
“I was thinking,” said he, “how great a solace and bulwark a pipe would have been to Socrates, during his interviews with Xantippe,—and it made me smile.”
“Yes,” said I, carelessly.
“Yes!” said he, rising up on his elbow,—“what do you mean by ‘yes’?”
“I merely meant to agree with you, that a pipe would have been a great solace and bulwark to Socrates during his interviews with Xantippe.”