"
"But I don't know how," objected Max.
"I'll teach you," said Ralph. "You'll soon learn and will find it good
sport."
At length Max yielded, though not without some qualms of conscience which
he tried to quiet by saying to himself, "Papa never said I shouldn't play
in this way; only that gambling was very wicked, and I must never go where
it was done."
"Have a cigar?" said Ralph, producing two, handing one to Max, and
proceeding to light the other. "You smoke, of course; every gentleman
does."
Max never had, and did not care to, but was so foolish as to be ashamed to
refuse after that last remark of Ralph's; beside having seen his father
smoke a cigar occasionally, he thought there could be no harm in it.
"Thank you, I don't care if I do," he said, and was soon puffing away as
if quite accustomed to it.
But it was not many minutes before he began to feel sick and faint, then
to find himself trembling and growing giddy.
He tried to conceal his sensations, and fought against them as long as
possible. But at length, finding he could endure it no longer, he threw
the stump of the cigar into the fire, and rising, said, "I--I feel sick.
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