A SCHEME THAT FAILED TO WORK

New Zealand Tablet, 27 September 1906, Page 37

A SCHEME THAT FAILED TO WORK

She read about it in the back of a magazine. The advertisement said that it was tasteless, -that it could be administered in the breakfast coffee, and that it would cure the most confirmed smoker of the tobacco habit without his knowledge. To be sure, Elmer only smoked three or four cigars a day. Still, why should he smoke at all ? So she wrote for the cure, and in due time it arrived, in a plain sealed package, with full instructions inside. Unfortunately it arrived before she was up. Elmer opened it, smiled to himself, sealed it up again, and said nothing. The next morning she gave him Ms first dose. ' This coffee has a bitter 'taste, hasn't it ?' he asked. 1 Your stomach must be out of order,' she answered. 'It tastes all right to me.' 1 Strange.' That night he brought home a large new box of cigars. Usually after dinner he smoked once. But that night he smoked all the evening. The atmosphere was thick. The second morning he complained again about the coffee's bitterness. ' Well, no wonder your taste is out of order,' she said reproachfully, ' considering how you smoked last night.' 'I've had the most remarkable craving for tobacco lately,' he muttered. And at dusk he brought home a costly meerschaum pipe and a pound of Oavendish, and, shutting himself up in the library, smoked like a forest fire until bed time. "Hadn't you better change the coffee ; surely you must have noticed its odd taste ? ' he said on the third morning. ' No, I haven't noticed it,' she answered faintly. He brought home from the city in the evening a huge tin box of Egyptian cigarettes, a hookah, and a jar of Turkish tobacco. ' I never enjoyed smoking as I've done lately,' he explained. 'I can't keep a cigar out of my mouth.' And that night he smoked cigars and cigarettes, meerschaum and hookah, till he saw her rise and hurry, with a vindictive look, to the kitchen. Fallowing on tiptoe, he saw her unlock a drawer, take out a bottle that he knew, and pour its contents into the sink. He chuckled. And thereafter he complained no more about the coffee and Ms tobacco appetite shrank back to its normal proportions.