THE VIRTUES OF A SMOKE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 767, 29 December 1876, Page 3

THE VIRTUES OF A SMOKE.

fie was a wild young scamp. He sat upon the edge of a bleak moor. IT is legs were half immersed in the muddy waters ol one of the most treacherous bogs in the locality. His tobacco was wet and his matches were damp, and he wanted a smoke. It was quite impossible that he could find his way to home before daylight had befact, and that sufficient time had elapsed after then to admit of old Sol absorbing the redundant steam arising from mother earth (swamp included). It was death to stir, and the tussock was so- circumscribed in space that an elongated position of the body could not by any possibility be brought about. That young wanderer came to the conclusion that science was played out. He felt convinced that he Could endure the cold, the wet, atxd the cramped position, but he could not go on without a smoko. Well, after a serious cogitation with himself, said (to himself, mind) that science was his fort, and he wouldn’t give in, and he having started on the very basis of philosophy that heat is necessary to dry things (which it isn’t), he thought he would do battle with the enemy of dampness, or else he’d die. Another hour, anil then he hit it. Ho took off his hat, and he fanned the end of his last vesta with ii continuous motion, such as would hove done everlasting credit to a two thousand horse-power steam engine, regulated with an accu racy that Frodsham’s chronometers would envy. Perseverance land ingenuity gained the day. The fanning process absorbed the dampness from out tire composition that adorned the ultra terminal of the vesta. A sharp application of the same to the lining of his hat, and glory to tho inVeUtor of matches, the pipe was lit, mid a valuable life aaved,—M‘Andrew's Wallet,