Page:JM Barrie--My lady nicotine.djvu/221

Rh of me, promising to increase the dose by degrees. Why, man, one cigarette a day is poison; it is worse than not smoking.'

"'But that is not what I did.'

"'The idea is the same,' he said. 'Like the others, you make all this moan about giving up completely a habit you should never have acquired. For my own part, I cannot even understand where the subtle delights of not smoking come in. Compared with health, they are surely immaterial.'

"'Of course, I admit that.'

"'Then, if you admit it, why pamper yourself?'

"'I suppose because one is weak in matters of habit. You have many cases like mine?'

"'I have such cases every week,' he told me; 'indeed, it was having so many cases of the kind that made me a specialist in the subject. When I began practice I had not the least notion how common the non-tobacco throat, as I call it, is.'

"'But the disease has been known, has it not, for a long time?'

"'Yes,' he said;' but the cause has only been discovered recently. I could explain the malady to you scientifically, as many medical men would prefer to do, but you are better to have it in plain English.'

"'Certainly; but I should like to know whether