The Argosy — page 197: what you’re looking at

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

178 The House of Halliwell. smoke, would never speak to her two maid-servants, except in her presence, and would always be in bed by half after ten, unless he was out with herself at a whist party. Let him promise this, and she would keep him, pay his laundress expenses, and allow him half-a- crown a week pocket money till his studies were over. Mr. Thomas Elliot was called into the presence of his parents, promised obedience to the rules, and vowed they were just what he should have laid down for himself. Whether Mr. Elliot quite believed him is doubtful, from the urgent cautions he pressed upon him not to offend Mrs. Agatha. When Tom was released he went into explosions of laughter, especially touching the half-crown a week. He arrived at Nearford: a dashing young man of twenty-one, showy in dress, free in manner, but the pink of quiet propriety in the presence of Mrs. Agatha; he speedily became popular in Nearford, and Mrs. Agatha grew intensely proud of him. ‘My dear Thomas,” she exclaimed to him one morning at break- fast, “‘ what an extraordinary smell of tobacco-smoke pervades the house when you are in it.” ‘Tt does, ma’am ; it’s highly disagreeable. Nearly makes me sick, sometimes.” “But what can it proceed from?” pursued Mrs. Agatha, sniffing very much over her muffin. ‘“‘ You assure me you do not smoke ; you promised solemnly, you know.” “T smoke!” echoed Mr. Tom; “I touch a filthy cigar! It comes from my clothes.” “How does it get into them ?” wondered Mrs. Agatha. ‘“"They are such a set, aunt, at that infirmary—have cigars in their mouths from morning till night. Sometimes I can’t see across our dissecting-room for the smoke. Of course my clothes get impreg- nated with it.” “Dear me, Thomas, how sorry I am for you! But don’t talk about dissecting-rooms, if you please. ‘The smell must also get into your eyes, and hair, and whiskers!” ‘¢So it does, uncommon strong. But I douse my head in the big basin, in a morning, and that takes it off.” “The governors of the infirmary ought to be reported to the Lord-lieutenant,” cried Mrs. Agatha, warmly. ‘‘I never heard of anything so shameful. How can they think of permitting the patients to smoke ?” “Tt’s not the patients, aunt,” returned Mr. Tom, smothering a grin. ‘*What should bring them in the dissecting-room : unless ahem !—they are carried there ?” ‘Then is it the doctors ?” “No: it’s the pupils.” ‘Misguided youths,” ejaculated Mrs. Agatha. ‘‘And you, a clergyman’s son, have to associate with them! Never you learn smoking, my dear Thomas. But about this smell: I really do not Gomichbooks.¢co