Gilray used to boast of a way of mending a hole in a tobacco-pouch that was better than sewing.

You put the two pieces of gutta-percha close together and then cut them sharply with scissors.

This makes them run together, he says, and I believed him until he experimented upon my pouch.

However, I did not object to a hole here and there.

Wherever I laid that pouch it left a small deposit of tobacco, and thus I could generally get together a pipeful at times when other persons would be destitute.