Page:Leon Wilson - Ruggles of Red Gap.djvu/268

254 of praise for my efforts to smarten the town's public dining.

The Klondike woman, I fancy, was the first to light a cigarette, though quickly followed by the ladies of her party. Mrs. Belknap-Jackson and Mrs. Effie, after a period of futile glaring at her through the lorgnons, seemed to make their resolves simultaneously, and forthwith themselves lighted cigarettes.

"Of course it's done in the smart English restaurants," murmured Belknap-Jackson as he assisted the ladies to their lights. Thereupon Mrs. Judge Ballard, farther down the room, began to smoke what I believe was her first cigarette, which proved to be a signal for other ladies of the Onwards and Upwards Society to do the same, Mrs. Ballard being their president. It occurred to me that these ladies were grimly bent on showing the Klondike woman that they could trifle quite as gracefully as she with the lesser vices of Bohemia; or perhaps they wished to demonstrate to the younger dancing men in her train that the North Side set was not desolately austere in its recreation. The Honourable George, I regret to say, produced a smelly pipe which he would have lighted; but at a shocked and cold glance from me he put it by and allowed the Mixer to roll him one of the yellow paper cigarettes from a sack of tobacco which she had produced from some secret recess of her costume.

Cousin Egbert had been excitedly happy throughout the meal and now paid me a quaint compliment upon the food. "Some eats, Bill!" he called to me. "I got to hand it to you," though what precisely it was he wished to hand me I never ascertained, for the Mixer at that moment claimed