were not likely to last through more than two or three of those years oh i expect to live longer than that said tlie idiot i think i m good for at least four years don t you doctor i decline to have anything to say about your case retorted the doctor whose feeling towards the idiot was not affectionate in that event i shall probably live five years said the idiot the doctor s lip curled but he remained silent you ll live put in mr with a chuckle the good die young how did you happen to keep alive all this time then mr asked the idiot i have always tobacco in e for one thing said mr i am surprised put in the idiot that s really a bad habit and i marvel greatly that you should have done it the school master frowned and looked at the idiot over the of his glasses as was his wont when he was intent upon getting explanations done what he asked severely tobacco replied the idiot you just said that one of the things that has kept you lingering in this of tears was that you have always tobacco i never did that and i never shall do it because i deem it a detestable diversion i didn t say anything of the sort retorted mr getting red in the face i never said that i tobacco in any form oh come said the idiot with impatience what s the use of talking that way we all heard what you said and i have no doubt that it came as a shock to every member of this assemblage it certainly was a shock to me because with all my weaknesses and bad habits i think tobacco bad the worst part of it is that you it in every form a man who tobacco only may some time throw off the habit but when one gets to be such a victim to it that he up cigars and and of pipe tobacco it seems to me he is it is not only a bad habit then it to a vice mr was getting you know well enough that i never said the words you attribute to me he said sternly really mr returned the idiot with an shake of his head as if he were to the school master to keep quiet � really pain me by these futile nobody forced you into the confession you made it entirely of your own now i ask you as a man and brother what s the use of saying anything more about it we believe you to be a person of the but when you say a thing before a of listeners one minute and deny it the next we are forced to one of two conclusions neither of which is pleasing we must conclude that either your confession you sacrifice the truth or that the habit to which you have confessed has entirely destroyed your perception of the moral question involved undue use of tobacco has i believe driven men crazy eating has destroyed all regard for truth in one whose word had always been regarded as good as a government bond i presume the undue use of tobacco can accomplish the same sad result by the way did you ever try is ruin said the doctor mr s indignation being so great that he seemed to be unable to find the words he was evidently desirous of at the idiot it is indeed said the idiot i knew a man once who smoked one little of it and while under its influence sat down at his and wrote a story of the supernatural order that was so good that everybody said he must have stolen it from or some other master of the weird and now nobody will have anything to do with him tobacco however in the sane use of it is a good thing i don t know of anything that is more satisfying to the tired man than to lie back on a sofa of an evening and puff clouds of smoke and rings into the air one of the finest dreams i ever had came from smoking i had blown a great mountain of smoke out into the room and it seemed to become real and i climbed to its summit and saw the most beautiful country at my feet � a country in which all men were happy where there were no troubles of any kind where no whim was left where were not and where every man who made more than enough to live on paid the into the common treasury for the use of those who hadn t made quite enough it was a national of the golden it rule and i maintain that if smoking were bad so good even in tlie abstract form of an idea could come out of it that s a very nice thought said the poet like to put that into verse the idea of a people dividing up their of wealth among the less successful is beautiful you can have it said the idiot with a pleased smile i don t write poetry of that kind myself unless i work hard and i ve found that when the poet works hard he produces poems that read hard you are welcome to it another time i was over my cigar after a day of the hardest kind of trouble at the office everything had gone wrong with me and i was blue as i came home here lit a cigar and threw myself down upon my bed and began to puff i felt like a man in a deep pit out of which there was no way of getting i closed my eyes for a second and to all and purposes i lay in that pit and then what did tobacco do for me why it lifted 