By the way, where is your own pipe ?" "I have abjured." "What ?" "Abjured." "And yet you have many of the marks of sanity." "Sanity! You just note it, and the most striking is that I don't have a pipe." "Expound me the riddle, please." "The exposition is simple enough.

I am constitutionally lazy and self-indulgent, and almost destitute of self-control--" "And permit me to interject without offence, an awful liar," said French pleasantly.

"Go on." "I came out here to work.

With a pipe and a few pounds of that mixture--" "Pounds! Ah!" ejaculated French.
"I would find myself immersed in dreamy seas of vaporous and idle bliss--do you catch that combination ?--and fancy myself, mark you, busy all the time.

It is the smoker's dementia accentuated by such a mixture as this, that while he is blowing rings he imagines he is doing something--" "The deuce he does! And he is jolly well right." "So, having something other to do than blow rings, I have abjured the pipe.