TOBACCO LEAVES 



roundings a blazing fire, a sanded floor, 

 a group of comfortable and, if possible, 

 capacious gentleman with a strong tend- 

 ency to silence and punch; none of which 

 are prominent characteristics of modern 

 society. The present-day smoker of the 

 churchwarden is something of a poseur, 

 as a rule; he is very young; eccentricities 

 in pipes are the privilege of the young, 

 being designed to impress those who are 

 still younger. And then, when it has been 

 successfully coloured, the labour of months 

 is apt to be destroyed by the implacable 

 housemaid. The old-fashioned smoker was 

 less susceptible to the sorrow of such a 

 calamity as this ; he was content to call, 

 like Sir Roger de Coverley, for a " clean 

 pipe," and apparently cared not for the 

 vanities of colouring. His pipe was but 

 the fortuitous companion of an evening, 

 wedded to him by no enduring ties, " called 

 for " at his coffee-house as though it was 

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