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156 did not mean to try it? Restraining my passion, I lighted a third cigar, and then put the question to him bluntly. Did he, or did he not, mean to try that tobacco? I dare say I was a little brusque; but it must be remembered that I had come all the way from the inn, at considerable inconvenience, to give the tobacco a thorough trial.

As is the way with men of Pettigrew's type, when you corner them, he attempted to put the blame on me. "Why had I not tried the tobacco," he asked, "instead of taking a third cigar?" For reply, I asked bitingly if that was not his third cigar. He admitted it was, but said that he smoked more quickly than I did, as if that put his behavior in a more favorable light. I smoked my third cigar very slowly, not because I wanted to put off the experiment; for, as every one must have noted, I was most anxious to try it, but just to see what would happen. When Pettigrew had finished his cigar—and I thought he would never be done with it—he gazed at the garden-tobacco for a time, and then took a pipe from the mantel-piece. He held it first in one hand, then in the other, and then he brightened up and said he would clean his pipes. This he did very slowly. When he had cleaned all his pipes he again looked at the garden-tobacco, which I pushed toward him. He glared at me as if I had not been doing a friendly thing, and then said, in