MARK TWAIN'S CIGARS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10502, 9 July 1910, Page 2 (Supplement)

MARK TWAIN'S CIGARS.

A picture of Mark Twain without a cigar or perhaps a calabash pipe would seem unnatural. In referring to the quality of the cigars he smoked, the humorist once remarked that, whenever lie held a smoking party at his house, he found that his guests had always just taken the. pledge. »Mr E. J. Edwards tells in the Chicago News how Mark Twain dropped in upon him one morning a few years ago in evident distress : "My friends for some years now have remarked that I am an inveterate consumer of tobacco," he said. "That is true, but mv habits with regard to tobacco have changed. I have 110 doubt that you 'will say, when I have explained to you what my present purpose is tiiat my taste has deteriorated, but I do not so regard it. "Let me tell you briefly the history of mv personal relation to tobacco. It began, I think, when I was a lad, and took the form of a quid, which I became expert in tucking under my tongue. Afterward I learned the delights of the pipe and I suppose there was no other youngster of my age who could more deftly cut plug tobacco so as to- make it available for pipe-smok-""Well, time ran 011, and there came a time when I was able to gratify one of my youthful ambitions —I could buy the choicest Havana, cigars without seriously interfering with my income. I smoked a good many, changing off from the Havana cigars to the pipe in the course of a day's smoking. "At last it occurred to me that'sometliiii"- was lacking'in the Havana cigar. It did not quite fulfil my youthful anticipations. I experimented. I bought what was called a seed-leaf cigar with a Connecticut wrapper. After a while I became satiated of these and I searched for something else. The Pittsburg stogy was recommended to me. It certainly had the merit of cheapness, if that be a merit in tobacco, and I experimented with the stogy. "Then, once more, I changed off, so that I might acquire the .subtler flavor of the "wheeling toby. Now that has palled and I have been looking around New York in the hope of finding cigars which would seem to most people vile, but which, I am sure, would be ambrosial to me. I can't find any. • They have put into my hands some of those little things that cost ten cents a box, but they are a delusion. "So I want to know if you can direct mo to an honest tobacco merchant who will tell me what is the worst cigar in the New York market, excepting those made for Chinese consumption—l want real tobacco. If you will do this and I find the man is as good as his word I will guarantee him a regular market for a fair amount of his cigars." I '• saw' that Mark Twain was really 'in earnest and after making inquiry took him to a tobacco dealer who I knew would tell the truth, who, it a cigar was bad, would boldly say so. I introduced the humorist to this mail, explaining dur errand, and he produced what he called the very worst cigars he had ever had in" his shop. He let Mark Twain experiment with one then alid there. The test was satisfactory. ."This is, after all, the real thing, exclaimed Mark, with delight. . 1 I will now negotiate for a box of t.iem ana take them away with me so that I may be sure of having them-handy when 1 want them." . . A few minutes later, with a hundred of those awful affairs tucked fondly under his arm, with one of them scenting. up the whole neighborhood position between his lips, and with the parting assertion that he had discoveted that the "worst cigars, so called, niv the best for me after, all," -ilark i wain went happily to his home. I afterward learned that for some months he was a steady purchaser of those cigars.