Ashtray

“ He called Miss Asher loudly.
She came, calm and slightly contemptuous, in her white shirt waist and plain black skirt.
“Mr. Platt would like the pleasure of your company to dinner this evening,” said Zizzbaum, walking away.
“Sure,” said Miss Asher, looking at the ceiling. “I’d be much pleased. Nine-eleven West Twentieth street. What time?”
“Say seven o’clock.”
“All right, but please don’t come ahead of time. I room with a school teacher, and she doesn’t allow any gentlemen to call in the room. There isn’t any parlor, so you’ll have to wait in the hall. I’ll be ready.” ”

“ What a timorous, morbid weakling he had been that night! Afraid of his own shadow, of every move and breath! Nothing could touch him now, nothing could harm him; no one could ever know!
He replaced the cane in the umbrella-stand and was turning again toward the kitchen when his eyes fell upon the center table in the living-room. There beneath the lamp lay the bronze ash tray ringed with cigar butts and filled with ashes. Again the thought came to him of that other tray with similar contents which he had scattered to the winds. Why not these also? Ashes to ashes. ”

“ These were annoying reflections, and while he resolved to be more temperate in future, how fervently he adjured his patron demon to ward off any danger he might have courted in his inebriation!
After his accustomed ride through the cane-fields, he retired to the library. The decanter had been replenished with brandy, and his late resolutions did not deter him from freely imbibing of its contents. The equilibrium was restored. His mind, stimulated by the fumes of the liquor, resumed its usual buoyancy. He paced the room, and drank frequent draughts of the fiery beverage. ”

“ Ashton-Kirk filled a finely colored meerschaum from the jar of Greek tobacco on the table; the pipe was a large one; upon the stem was a charging boar, exceptionally well done; and the curving bit was hard, gray bone.
"That combination always struck me as an exciting smoke," observed Bat Scanlon, from the opposite side of the table. "The tobacco, like most things from the Balkans, is a little unsettled; and the wild porker means battle with every bristle." ”

“ What is left (after lighting the fire) of a frame picture lies on the hearth-rug. Gilray walks in uninvited. He has left word that his visitors are to be sent on to me. The room fills. My hand feels along the mantelpiece for a brown jar. The jar is between my knees; I fill my pipe....
After a time the music ceases, and my wife puts her hand on my shoulder. Perhaps I start a little, and then she says I have been asleep. This is the book of my dreams.
CHAPTER II. MY FIRST CIGAR.
It was not in my chambers, but three hundred miles further north, that I learned to smoke. ”

“ Asher shouted wildly, kicking, shooting and hitting, gaining toward the shaft. "Squeak—for all the damned Things that ever bred below the earth cannot stop one surface man!"
He burned and fought his way through and jumped into the cage as his gun electrocuted two of the Petrolia that tried to weave in after him. As he slammed the door, Asher was conscious that something was happening. He hesitated, just long enough to see the cavern start buckling and caving. The pressure of the oil, now shut off, was filling back toward the surface, creating a mighty pressure downward. ”

“ The air of the room is thick with smoke, for most of the men are smoking clay or corncob pipes, but the smoke is scarcely recognizable as that of tobacco, so largely is that expensive weed mixed with dried sweet-fern and other herbs, for the sake of economy. Of the score or two persons present, only two, Israel Goodrich and Ezra Phelps, are actually drinking anything. Not certainly that they are the only ones disposed to drink, as the thirsty looks that follow the mugs to their lips, sufficiently testify, but because they alone have credit at the bar. ”

“ In her flurry, her sudden grief, she addressed him as she had been accustomed to address him in his boyhood.
“Do you hear it, Master George? That’s the passing-bell! It is for him. There’s nobody else within ten miles they would trouble to have the bell tolled for at nigh ten o’clock at night. The Master of Ashlydyat’s gone.”
She sat down on a chair, regardless of the presence of her master and mistress, and, flinging her apron up to her face, burst into a storm of sobs.
A voice in the passage aroused her, for she recognized it as Bexley’s. George opened the room door, and the old man came in. ”

“ Asher Skurge felt himself to be too old a bird to be caught with that sort of chaff—he only believed in four spirits, did Asher; and, after gin, rum, brandy, and whisky had been named, the speaker would have got to the end of Asher’s spiritual tether. ”

“ Hillary were there, James Sherring sat down in the Chimney to fill a pipe of Tobacco, he made use of the Fire-tongs to take up a Coal to light his Pipe, and by and by the Tongs were drawn up the Stairs, and after they were up in the Chamber, they were play’d withal (as many times Men do) and then thrown down upon the Bed. ”

“ As the ice melts, you drink.”
“I once,” says the marine author of this receipt, of which the reader has ipsissima verba, “I once overheard two ladies talking in the next room to me, and one of them said, ‘Well, if I have a weakness for any one thing, it is for a mint julep!’”
This weakness of the American lady was, in the opinion of the Metropolitan Hotel barman in New York, very amiable, and proved, not only her good taste, but her good sense.
In mulls, which may be made of any kind of wine, the essential feature is the boiling. ”

“ Ashworth as everything about her does. Her hands move deftly and without hurry and she never interrupts conversation with queries about sugar and cream. A maid, who was neither young nor old, pretty nor ugly, an unobtrusive, [Pg 225] perfectly articulated piece of household machinery, made noiseless flittings with plates. Mrs. Ashworth does not like men servants. I suppose they are clumsy and by their large bulky shapes and gruff voices, disturb the rhythm of that beautiful, mellow, subdued room.
Presently I was sipping my tea and looking at Harry Ferguson trying to sip his in a perfect way. ”

“ In addition to strange compounds known in various parts of this country, such as Gin and Lime Juice, Whiskey or Rum and Milk, Brandy and Port, a drink said to have originated in Lancashire, Dog’s Nose, Shandy Gaff, etc., etc., may be mentioned Ethyl [362] or Methylated Spirits, a beverage which, like ether in Ireland, has of late years advanced considerably in public estimation. It has the two advantages of being cheap and heady. An Act of 1880 imposed penalties on any retail tradesman selling it for the purpose of drink. ”

“ Paths invariably lead from one village to another.
The Ashira are a tolerably industrious tribe, and cultivate the land around their villages, growing tobacco, plantains, yams, sugar-cane, and other plants with much success. The tobacco leaves, when plucked and dried, are plaited together in a sort of flat rope, and are then rolled up tightly, so that a considerable quantity of tobacco is contained in a very small space. ”

“ She found herself in some gardens where an elderly man was feeding sparrows; she sat down on a bench and watched him.
It seemed years ago that she went down to Enmore with June––since she sat in the little inn with Micky and heard those two men talking.
The hot blood beat into her cheeks as she remembered something that for the moment she had forgotten––that Raymond Ashton was married!
The man gave the sparrows his last crumbs and went away. The little brown birds came hopping to Esther’s feet, looking up at her with bright, eager eyes, as if expecting her to supply a further meal. ”

“ A moment, and Ezra appeared in the doorway leading from the cabin to the “dining-saloon.”
“Well, Master Hal, what is it?” smiled the cook, beaming with affection. In one hand he held a “copper,” just such as aboard the Silver Fleece had heated water for the scalding of the Malays. “What d’you want, Master Hal?”
“Look here, Ezra,” said the boy arrogantly, “I’ve been trying to find the rum grandpop always keeps in there. Couldn’t locate it, so I’ve been giving this whisky a trial, and—”
“When whisky an’ young men lay ’longside one another, the whisky don’t want a trial. It wants lynchin’!” ”

“ The gas and oil had been eased out of the hole. That is, the casing had been run on through the producing strata, shutting it off. Asher signaled by buzzer, and a stream of the ice-washed air flowed down to him.
Three thousand feet! Six thousand feet! More than a mile down! Sweat [344] poured from his body in streams, and the air coming into the Miner through the hose did not relieve him. It was hot—almost unbearably so. His ears were roaring. The dark of his tube was relieved as he turned on his pressure lamps. ”

“ He believes in her smiles and puts faith in her sighs,
While he's dazzled by light from her fathomless eyes:
Ah! the dearest of voices delightfully sings
Through the weird intertwining of Cigarette Rings! 66
How sweet was her song in the bright summer-time,
When winds whispered low, 'neath the tremulous lime!
How sweet too that bunch of forget-me-nots blue—
The love he thought lasting, the words he thought true!...
Ah! the words of a woman concerning such things
Are weak and unstable as Cigarette Rings! ”

“ Then Cyril returned, and his parents composed their faces and he deposited, next to the florin, a sham meerschaum pipe in a case, a tobacco-pouch, a cigar of which one end had been charred but the other not cut, and a half-empty packet of cigarettes without a label.
Nothing could be hid from Mr. Povey. ”

“ And she took his arm and sauntered with him while he ruined the scent of the honeysuckle vines.
And Forbes had heard an anecdote, probably untrue, of the great Mrs. Astor; according to this legend, a man, hankering for a cigar, yet hesitating to suggest it, asked her casually: "What would you say if a man asked you for permission to smoke?" ”

“ Johnson harangued upon the qualities of different liquors; and spoke with great contempt of claret, as so weak, that ‘a man would be drowned by it, before it made him drunk.’ He was persuaded to drink one glass of it, that he might judge, not from recollection, which might be dim, but from immediate sensation. He shook his head, and said, ‘Poor stuff! No, sir, claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero’ (smiling) ‘must drink brandy. ”

“ When at last she found her voice it was strained and cracked.
“... that she told him you were there with her....” Her brown eyes searched his face as if they were trying to read his very soul. “If it’s a lie,” she said shrilly, “it’s she who is lying––she told Raymond Ashton that she was there with you.”
“She told him....”
For a moment Micky stood like a man turned to stone. Was this the truth?––that Esther had told Ashton....
He looked again at Marie.
“When did Ashton tell you this?”
“To-night––not a moment ago––he is here.” ”

“ Fakrash's Voice.
[From interior of bottle.] I am betrayed! The constables of Progress are without! Let me forth that I may slay them and secure safety!
Horace.
[Promptly clapping on the cap and screwing it tightly.] You're safer where you are, old cocky! Good-bye! [Wipes his forehead.] Phew! Near thing that! [The knock is repeated.] All right! Wait a bit! I'm busy!
[He takes the bottle into his bedroom.
Rapkin's Voice.
[Outside door.] All right, sir! [Horace returns, goes to door at back, and unlocks it; to Rapkin, who is seen with a telegram.] What is it? ”

“ Buddy heard dimly his mother's sharp command to Ezra:
“Stand back, Ezra! We're not going to be caught in that terrible trap. They're piling over the bank ahead of us. Get away from the leaders. I am going to shoot.”
Buddy crawled up a little higher on the blankets behind the seat, and saw mother steady herself and aim the rifle straight at Crumpy. There was the familiar, deafening roar, the acrid smell of black powder smoke, and Crumpy went down loosely, his nose rooting the trampled ground for a space before the gun belched black smoke again and Crumpy's yoke-mate pitched forward. ”

“ It is rash for an enemy to put his name to a book—especially some other fellow's book. Mr. Mark Ashburn and I must have a little private conversation together, in which I shall see how much I remember of the action of the common pump.'
He sat down and wrote a genial little note, asking Mark, if he had no better engagement, to come round and dine quietly with him at the house in Kremlin Road that evening, gave it to his landlord with directions to take a cab to Mark's rooms, and if he could, bring back an answer, after which he waited patiently for his messenger's return. ”

“ According to Wedgwood, mulled is a form of mould, and mulled ale is funeral ale, potatio funerosa. Nogg is from noggin, signifying a pot, and then the strong beer which it contains. Negus is commonly known to have been the invention of Col. Francis Negus in the reign of Anne. Punch is of course from the Hindustani پانچ, signifying 5, from its five original ingredients, to wit, aqua vitæ, rose water, sugar, arrack, and citron juice. A very unsatisfactory derivation of Sangaree is from the Spanish sangria, the incision of a vein. Shrub is clearly the Arabic شرب or syrup. ”

“ Fielding has immortalized the squire of the mid-eighteenth century in his picture of that sporting, roaring, swearing, drinking, smoking, affectionate, irascible, blundering, altogether extraordinary owner of broad acres, Squire Western. We may shrewdly suspect that the portrait of Western is somewhat over-coloured, and cannot fairly be taken as typical; but there is sufficient evidence to show that in some respects at least—in his enthusiasm for sport and love of ale and tobacco—Western is representative of the country squires of his day. ”