MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE

business. Some of 'em have started putting rows of
automatic machines outside at closing time. You've
seen 'em. Well, I say they might as well keep 'em all
day and have done with it. Packet o' gaspers. Ten.
There's your sixpence. Twenty. There's your shilling.
Am I a man or am I an automatic machine?"
"Quite so," said Mr. Smeeth, nodding his head,
"I'm a man, and what's more, I'm a man with expert
knowledge, I am. You come to me, and you say, 1 want
such and such a smoke, a bit of Virginia, a bit of Lati-
kee-ya—or you mightn't say that because you mightn't
know so much about it—but, anyhow, you've got your
idea of what you want and you come to me and I fix you
up, just as I've fixed you up with this mixture of mine.
There's some pleasure in that. But this packet o' gasper
business. I might as well stand in the door there, and
every time you put sixpence in my mouth, a packet of
ten drops out of my waistcoat."

"You'd look well, wouldn't you?" Mr. Smeeth
watched him filling the pouch, and could not help
thinking that T. Benenden's Own looked dustier than

usual.

"Getting a bit down with that," T. Benenden ad-
mitted, rolling up the pouch, "though if you ask me,
I'd tell you to give me the bottom of the tin every time.
That's not ordinary dust, y'know. That's good short
stuff, best Oriental. It's rich, that, and the Prince of
Wales wouldn't want anything better than that in his
pipe—and I believe he smokes one."

"I believe he does," said Mr. Smeeth, handing over
his money, "But what was that you were saying about
being married?"

"Ar, yes," said T. Benenden, preparing to consume