THE TIM BUNKER PAPERS. 277 



Speaking of Seth Twiggs smoking, reminds me that I 

 owe an apology to your readers, perhaps, to all the anti- 

 tobacco part of them in particular, that I have said so 

 much about his habit. For you see the thing is mighty 

 catching. No sooner had I got the fashion set in the 

 Agriculturist than all the letter writers in the political pa 

 pers took it up, and every time they bring out their hero, 

 General Grant, they must tell just how many times and 

 how he smokes. You see, the General has not made his 

 appearance in public since he got to be a great man 

 without his cigar. The public are supposed to be in 

 terested in knowing just the length of his cigar, 

 whether it is a long nine or not, its color, its cost, and 

 the particular brand the General uses. Jake Frink says, 

 u the tobacco men have bought up the General or his 

 letter writer, and all this fuss about his smoking is an 

 advertising dodge to get their cigars into market. It 

 is a mean abolishun trick to raise the price of tobacco, and 

 he spects it ll git to be so high that common folks can t 

 have a chaw except on Fourth of July, or some sich special 

 occasion.&quot; 



I think there is considerable sense in what Jake says. 

 Hookertown don t care a rush whether the General smokes 

 or not, whether he smokes dollar cigars or steeped cabbage 

 leaves, whether he smokes quietly or puffs away like a 

 locomotive. The General s business has been fighting, I 

 take it, for the last few years, and if he had used half the 

 tobacco the letter writers have gin him credit for, he 

 wouldn t have had any brains left to plan a campaign. 

 They have run the thing into the ground. 



Seth Twiggs case is different. His business is smoking. 

 If he has any other business, nobody has been able to find 

 it out. He cultivates a little land, works in the garden 

 some, and tinkers round a good deal ; but this is only his 

 amusement. The solid work on which he lays himself out 

 is smoking. Now a man who assumes &quot;the solemn re- 



