"You like mine?"

"Very much."

He was amazed at the admission, so much so that he puffed out a huge
cloud of smoke from his cigar in mental protest.

They had come to the smoking-room again. This was an innovation aboard
the _Nome_. There was no other like it in the Alaskan service, with its
luxurious space, its comfortable hospitality, and the observation parlor
built at one end for those ladies who cared to sit with their husbands
while they smoked their after-dinner cigars.

"If you want to hear about Alaska and see some of its human make-up,
let's go in," he suggested. "I know; of no better place. Are you afraid
of smoke?"

"No. If I were a man, I would smoke."

"Perhaps you do?"

"I do not. When I begin that, if you please, I shall bob my hair."

"Which would be a crime," he replied so earnestly that again he was
surprised at himself.

Two or three ladies, with their escorts, were in the parlor when they
entered. The huge main room, covering a third of the aft deck, was blue
with smoke. A score of men were playing cards at round tables. Twice as
many were gathered in groups, talking, while others walked aimlessly up