The Argosy, Volume XLIV — page 255: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A BARGAIN “TIT suppose you will leave instruc- tions in your will to have them buried in your coffin. Thank you, George, but I don’t think I want my memory kept green by a box of cigars. However, please yourself.” : “It does seem a pity not to smoke them, doesn’t it?” George said, exam- ining the lid. “ Jackson and Howe— eh? Never heard of them before.” “ The clerk said they were a new firm —just started, and that they were very good quality—the cigars, | mean. I’m sure they must be, or people like that man in the picture wouldn’t smoke them. Come, George, don’t be so ab- surd.” Mr. Scales shook his head sadly. “TI couldn’t, really, Mary,” he said. “TI might regret it all my life.” With a gentle sigh he closed the lid, placed the boxes on a shelf, after 1m- printing a couple of reverential kisses on the covers, and having bestowed two more on his wife’s lips left the house for his office. Mrs. Scales, who was no fool, was not in the least deceived by her husband's affectation of sentiment. Her birthday gift of two years ago, a wadded silk smoking jacket, had been worn until it almost fell to pieces, and was now filling a useful place in a stove- pipe hole. Her last present, a silver pencil-case, had been lost a week after purchase, and Mr. Scales had accepted his bereavement with exemplary calm- ness. That he should wish to keep two boxes of cigars as mementoes was too absurd an idea to be entertained for a moment. Mrs. Scales spent fifteen minutes considering the problem, and _ then hunted up one of her husband’s old cigar boxes. The box had so many inscriptions on various parts that she was in consid- erable doubt as to the name of the brand, so, to make sure, she carefully copied them all out, bestowing, as she did so, a contemptuous sniff on the ex- treme simplicity of the label. “Not nearly as good as mine, I'm sure,” she told herself as, her labors concluded, she threw the box back into the enpboard. IN WEEDS. 251 Then she abstracted one of the “Upper Tens,” and, having made it into a neat little parcel, placed it in her reticule and betook herself down- town. Mr. Albert Juppson, the leading to- bacconist of the city, was considerably surprised in the middle of an interest- ing conversation with a customer by the entrance of a young and pretty woman, who timidly approached the counter, and, after a moment’s fum- bling in her satchel, produced a piece of paper and handed it to him. The tobacconist, who suspected an appeal for charity, accepted it with some reluctance, but his brow cleared as he read the inscriptions, and he wait- ed with smiling encouragement for fur- ther information. “Have you ever heard of those cigars?” Mrs. Scales asked anxiously. ‘I don’t know what the name is, but it-is one of those on that paper.” “The Boccaccio, madam? Certainly. A very excellent cigar. We sell a large number. Do you wish to purchase some? ” “No,” replied Mrs. Scales. “At least, not just now. [ want to know how much they cost.” ‘Fifteen dollars a hundred,” said the tobacconist. Mrs. Scales gave a little gasp, and gripped the counter hard with both hands. “How much?” she asked faintly. The tobacconist repeated his remark. “There must be some mistake,” in- sisted Mrs. Scales. “My husband smokes these cigars.” “He has an excellent taste, madam,” Mr. Juppson answered with a gallant bow. “I can assure you there is no mis- take. This is the box. I have no doubt you will recognize it. The price you see is plainly marked—fifteen cents straight. That means apiece.” This evidence was conclusive, and Mrs. Scales admitted it. She was greatly shocked hy her hus- band’s deceitfulness, and annoyed that she should have been placed in a humil- lating position through it. “T have got a cigar in here which I wish you would look at,” she said after a few moments’ meditation. “ It—it is awa (GO) ElOOO (GO) awa