First, I ask, do you know--(1), the man who never smokes from the
night of the 11th of August up to the night of the 1st of February in
the following year, for fear of injuring his sight and his shooting
nerve? (2), the host who forbids all smoking amongst the guests
assembled at his house for a shooting-party?
You, naturally enough, reply that you have not the honour of being
acquainted with these severe, but enthusiastic gentlemen. Nobody does
know them. They don't exist. But it is very useful to affect a sort of
second-hand knowledge of these Gorgons of the weed, as thus:--
_A Party of Guns is walking to the first beat of the day.
Time, say about_ 10·20 A.M.
_Young Sportsman_ (_who has a pipe in his mouth, to Second Sportsman,
similarly adorned_). I always think the after-breakfast smoke is about
the best of the day. Somehow, tobacco tastes sweeter then than at any
other time of the day.
_Second Sp._ (_puffing vigorously_). Yes, it's first class; but I hold
with smoke at most times of the day, after breakfast, after lunch,
after dinner, and in between.
_Young Sp._ Well, I don't know. If I try to smoke when I'm actually
shooting, I generally find I've got my pipe in the gun side of my
mouth. I heard of a man the other day who knocked out three of his
best teeth through bringing up his gun sharp, and forgetting he'd
got a pipe in his mouth. Poor beggar! he was very plucky about it,
I believe; but it made no end of a difference to his pronunciation
till he got a new lot shoved in. Just like that old Johnnie in the
play--Overland something or other--who lost his false set of teeth
on a desert island, and couldn't make any of the other Johnnies
understand him.
_Second Sp._ I've never had any difficulty with my smoking. I always
make a habit of carrying my smokes in the left side of my mouth.
_Young Sp._ Oh, but you're pretty certain to get the smoke or the
ashes or something, blown slap into your eyes just as you're going to
loose off. No. (_With decision_.) I'm off my smoke when the popping
begins.
_Second Sp._ Don't be too hard on yourself, my boy. They tell me there
are precious few birds in the old planting this year, so you can treat
yourself to a cigarette when you get there. It never pays to trample
on one's longing for tobacco too much.
_Young Sp._ No, by Jove. Old REGGIE MORRIS told me of a fellow he met
somewhere this year, who goes regularly into training for shooting.
Never touches baccy from August to February, and limits his drink
to three pints a day, and no whiskeys and sodas. And what's more, he
won't let any of his guests smoke when he's got a shoot on, He's got
"No Smoking" posted up in big letters in every room in the house.
REGGIE said it was awful. He had to lock his bedroom door, shove the
chest-of-drawers against it, and smoke with his head stuck right up
the chimney. He got a peck of soot, one night, right on the top of his
nut. Now I call that simple rot.
_Second Sp._ Ah, I've heard of that man. Never met him though, I'm
thankful to say. Let me see what's the beggar's name? JACKSON or
BARRETT, or POLLARD, or something like that. He's got a big place
somewhere in Suffolk, or Yorkshire, or somewhere about there.
_Young Sp._ Yes, that's the chap, I fancy.
Now that kind of thing starts you very nicely for the day. It isn't
necessary that either of the sportsmen whose dialogue has been
reported should believe implicitly in the absolute truth of what he is
saying. Observe, neither of them says that he himself met this man.
He merely gets conversation out of him on the strength of what someone
else has told him. That, you see, is the real trick of the thing.
Don't bind yourself to such a story as being part of your own personal
experience. Work it in on another man's back. Of course there are
exceptions even to this rule. But this question I shall be able to
treat at greater length when I come to deal with the important subject
of "Shooting Anecdotes."
[Illustration]
Very often you can work up quite a nice little conversation on
cigarettes. Every man believes, as is well-known, that he possesses
the only decent cigarettes in the country. He either--(1), imports
them himself from Cairo, or (2), he gets his tobacco straight from
a firm of growers somewhere in Syria and makes it into cigarettes
himself; or (3), he thinks Egyptian cigarettes are an abomination,
and only smokes Russians or Americans; or (4), he knows a man,
BACKASTOPOULO by name, somewhere in the Ratcliffe Highway, who
has _the_ very best cigarettes you ever tasted. You wouldn't give
two-pence a hundred for any others after smoking these, he tells you.
And, lastly, there is the man who loathes cigarettes, despises those
who smoke them, and never, smokes anything himself except a special
kind of cigar ornamented with a sort of red and gold garter.
Out of this conflict of preferences the young shooter can make
capital. By flattering everybody in turn, he can practically get his
smoking gratis, for everyone will be sure to offer him at least one
cigarette, in order to prove the superiority of his own particular
kind. And if the young shooter, after smoking it, expresses a proper
amount of ecstasy, he is not at all unlikely to have a second offered
to him. Most men are generous with cigarettes. Many a man I know
would far rather give a beggar a cigarette than a shilling, though
the cigarette may have cost, originally, a penny-halfpenny, or more--a
strange and paradoxical state of affairs.
Here is a final piece of advice. Admire all cigarette-cases, and say
of each that it's the very best and prettiest you ever saw. You can
have no notion how much innocent pleasure you will give.
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