Page:Kéraban the Inflexible Part 1 (Jules Verne).djvu/160

162 "Yes, for people who wish to poison themselves by degrees."

"It is not a poison!"

"It is, and a very strong poison!"

"Have I died of it?" exclaimed Kéraban, puffing away.

"No, but you will."

"Well, then in my last hour I will maintain that tombéki is preferable to that dried hay you call Latakia," said Kéraban, in a solemnly-nervous tone.

"I cannot be such a mistaken idea pass without protest," said Van Mitten, getting excited in his turn.

"It will pass, nevertheless."

"And you dare to say this to a man who has sold tobacco for twenty years?"

"And you dare to assert the contrary to a man who has sold tobacco for thirty?"

"Twenty years!"

"Thirty years!"

At this point of the discussion the disputants rose at the same moment. While they gesticulated, they let their pipes fall; but they picked them up again, and continued the dispute, getting extremely personal.

"Van Mitten, you are, out and out, the most pig-headed man I have ever met."

"After you, Kéraban; after you."

"I?"

"You," replied the Dutchman, who no longer could control himself. "Just look at the smoke of the Latakia which is issuing from my lips!"

"And do you look at the fumes of the tombéki which I puff out in such odoriferous clouds."

Then each one puffed into the face of the other.

"Now just inhale the flavour of my tobacco," said one.

"Just inhale mine," said the other.

"I am obliged to confess," said Van Mitten, "that, as regards tobacco, you are perfectly ignorant."

"And you," retorted Kéraban, "are far behind the merest tyro in smoking."

The dispute waxed so warm that the voices were audible