He flattened his Celtic nose on the window and stared
fascinated at the array of super-pipes displayed there. After a furtive
glance along the street he crept into the temple. A white-coated priest
met him.
"I--I'm wantin'--a--a pipe," said Jackson. He saw the priest reel and
turn pale to the lips. "I should say a--a Brownhill," he added hastily.
The other man gulped, steadied himself with an effort, and gave a
ghastly smile. If you had walked into a temple at Thibet and planked
down sixpence and asked for an idol wrapped up in brown paper you could
not have done a more dreadful thing than Jackson had done; but the
priest forgave him and produced in silence a trayful of Brownhills. Then
was Jackson like unto ELIA'S little Chinese boy with "the crackling." He
touched a briar and was converted. He stroked them as though they were
kittens, bought ten of them, a pound of polish, fifty silver wind-pipes
and a bale of chamois-leather. The priest took a deep breath.
"You are a full-blooded man, Sir," said he, "if you will excuse me
saying so, and you should smoke in your new Brownhills a mixture which
has a proportion of Latakia to Virginian of one to nineteen--a small
percentage of glycerine and cucumber being added because you have red
hair, and the whole submitted to a pressure of eighteen hundred
foot-pounds to the square millimetre, under violet rays.
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