MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED 65

ment, for he remembered that he was out of tobacco and
so turned into the neighbouring shop, the one occupied,
by T. Benenden.

Mr. Smeeth was one of T. Benenden's regular
customers, a patron (perhaps the only one) of T. Benen-
den's Own Mixture (Cool Sweet Smoking). "No/' he
liked to tell some fellow pipe-smoker, "I don't fancy
your ounce-packet stuff. I like my tobacco freshly
mixed, y'know, and so I always get it from a little shop
near the office. It's the chap's own mixture and so it's
always fresh. Oh, fine stuff!—you try a pipeful—and very
reasonable. Been getting it for years now. And the
chap I get it from is a bit of a character in his way."
Saying this made Mr. Smeeth feel that he was a con-
noisseur of both tobacco and human nature, and it gave
an added flavour to his pipe, which could do with it after
being charged with nothing but T. Benenden's own
mixture. It is hardly possible that he was right about
the tobacco being "freshly mixed/' for though mixed—
and well mixed—it may have been, it could not come
from T. Benenden's little shop, with its hundreds of
dusty dummy packets, its row of battered tin canisters,
its dilapidated weight scales, its dirty counter, its solitary
wheezing gas mantle, its cobwebs and dark corners, and
still be fresh. On the other hand, he was certainly right
when he described T. Benenden himself as a bit of a
character in his way.

T. Benenden's way was that of the philosophical
financier turned shopkeeper. He was an oldish man
who wore thick glasses (which only magnified eyes that
protruded far enough without their help), a straggling
pepper-and-salt beard, one of those old-fashioned single
high collars and a starched front, and no tie. When Mr.

c*