Mr Mulliner Speaking Read Online Free PDF

is all the trouble about?'
     
The Tankard of Ale pointed the stem of his pipe accusingly at his adversary. One could see that he was deeply stirred.
     
'He's talking Rot about smoking.'
     
'I am talking sense.'
     
'I didn't hear any.'
     
'I said that smoking was dangerous to the health. And it is.'
     
'It isn't.'
     
'It is. I can prove it from my own personal experience. I was once,' said the Lemon Squash, 'a smoker myself, and the vile habit reduced me to a physical wreck. My cheeks sagged, my eyes became bleary, my whole face gaunt, yellow and hideously lined. It was giving up smoking that brought about the change.'
     
'What change?' asked the Tankard.
     
The Lemon Squash, who seemed to have taken offence at something, rose and, walking stiffly to the door, disappeared into the night. Mr Mulliner gave a little sigh of relief.
     
'I am glad he has left us,' he said. 'Smoking is a subject on which I hold strong views. I look upon tobacco as life's outstanding boon, and it annoys me to hear these faddists abusing it. And how foolish their arguments are, how easily refuted. They come to me and tell me that if they place two drops of nicotine on the tongue of a dog the animal instantly dies: and when I ask them if they have ever tried the childishly simple device of not placing nicotine on the dog's tongue, they have nothing to reply. They are non-plussed. They go away mumbling something about never having thought of that.'
     
He puffed at his cigar in silence for a few moments. His genial face had grown grave.
     
'If you ask my opinion, gentlemen,' he resumed, 'I say it is not only foolish for a man to give up smoking – it is not safe. Such an action wakes the fiend that sleeps in all of us. To give up smoking is to become a menace to the community. I shall not readily forget what happened in the case of my nephew Ignatius. Mercifully, the thing had a happy ending, but . . .'
     
 
     
Those of you (said Mr Mulliner) who move in artistic circles are possibly familiar with the name and work of my nephew Ignatius. He is a portrait-painter of steadily growing reputation. At the time of which I speak, however, he was not so well-known as he is to-day, and consequently had intervals of leisure between commissions. These he occupied in playing the ukulele and proposing marriage to Hermione, the beautiful daughter of Herbert J. Rossiter and Mrs Rossiter, of 3 Scantlebury Square, Kensington. Scantlebury Square was only just round the corner from his studio, and it was his practice, when he had a moment to spare, to pop across, propose to Hermione, get rejected, pop back again, play a bar or two on the ukulele, and then light a pipe, put his feet on the mantelpiece, and wonder what it was about him that appeared to make him distasteful to this lovely girl.
     
It could not be that she scorned his honest poverty. His income was most satisfactory.
     
It could not be that she had heard something damaging about his past. His past was blameless.
     
It could not be that she objected to his looks for, like all the Mulliners, his personal appearance was engaging and even – from certain angles – fascinating. Besides, a girl who had been brought up in a home containing a father who was one of Kensington's leading gargoyles and a couple of sub-humans like her brother Cyprian and her brother George would scarcely be an exacting judge of male beauty. Cyprian was pale and thin and wrote art-criticism for the weekly papers, and George was stout and pink and did no work of any kind, having developed at an early age considerable skill in the way of touching friends and acquaintances for small loans.
     
The thought occurred to Ignatius that one of these two might be able to give him some inside information on the problem. They were often in Hermione's society, and it was quite likely that she might have happened to mention at one time or another what it was about him that caused her so repeatedly to hand the mitten to a good man's