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At length a few whiffs came across the water, and, by eleven o'clock the regular northwest wind set steadily in. There was no need of calling all hands, for we had all been hanging about the forecastle the whole forenoon, and were ready for a start upon the first sign of a breeze. Often we turned our eyes aft upon the captain, who was walking the deck, with every now and then a look to windward.
Earlier in the year there was hay-making in the valley itself. All the warm night was sometimes fragrant with the scent of the cut grass; and about this season, too, the pungent odour of shallots lying out in the gardens to ripen off would come in soft whiffs across the hedges.
Exteree speciul! Ech-ow! Steendard! and a brass band was blaring out its saddest strain of merry dance-music. The lights gleamed dismally in rain-puddles and on the wet pavement. With the wind came whiffs of tobacco and odours of the drinking-bar. They crossed, and walked the length of Islington High Street, then a short way along its continuation, Upper Street.
Here, was a coolie mixing the drug; there, just beyond him, was another, drawing whiffs from the bubbling narcotic through the bamboo handle of his pipe; there, still beyond, was another, lying back unconscious, half-clad, repulsive, a very sorry reality indeed to the gorgeous dreams that are reputed to follow in the train of the seductive pipe.
His speech was somewhat sullen and hesitating, and what he said was interrupted by whiffs of smoke and sips of liquor; but the nature of the subject was so absorbing that it needed no gifts of eloquence.
Our camp fire was going, and we all sat around it and smoked the pipe of peace, which is done as follows: The pipe is filled with the bark of a red willow, and when lighted is handed to the highest or head chief. He takes one or two long whiffs; then, as he raises his head and blows the smoke in clouds toward the heavens and the Great Spirit, he passes the pipe to his guest on the right.
This aide followed him over the battle-field, wherever the exigencies of the service required, and supplied him with whiffs of the fragrant weed to compose his nerves at intervals during the action.
The streets lie straight up and down the hills, and straight across at right angles, these in sun, those in shadow, a trenchant pattern of gloom and glare; and what with the crisp illumination, the sea-air singing in your ears, the chill and glitter, the changing aspects both of things and people, the fresh sights at every corner of your walk sights of the bay, of Tamalpais, of steep, descending streets, of the outspread city whiffs of alien speech, sailors singing on shipboard, Chinese coolies toiling on the shore, crowds brawling all day in the street before the Stock Exchange one brief impression follows and obliterates another, and the city leaves upon the mind no general and stable picture, but a profusion of airy and incongruous images, of the sea and shore, the east and west, the summer and the winter.
Arthur lighted his cigarette, took several whiffs, staring at Frank all the while, and finally observed: "When the governor came home and told me about you, he said you didn't touch liquor and didn't smoke; but I sort of fancied you had been playing it clever with him for reasons of your own." Merry flushed a little. "In short," he said, "you thought I was fooling him?"
Then, between long-drawn whiffs of the rank-smelling pipe, brother Mason descanted upon himself and his achievements, religious, social, financial, and political, with no interruption save frequent fits of choking on the part of poor Henrietta, whom even the clouds of rank smoke could not drive from her position of vantage.
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