"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 my attention with a compliment of her own.
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