The Camas Hot Springs Exchange

CIGARETTE TRICK
By Richard Hill Wilkinson

Joe Frazer finished his dinner, pushed back his chair and produced a cigarette. Extending his left hand horizontally, palm down, he placed the cigarette thereon, struck his left wrist sharply with his right hand and opened his mouth.

The cigarette bounded into the air, somersaulted and missed popping into Joe's mouth by a hair. Joe giggled good-naturedly and repeated the operation. On the fifth try his lips caught the somersaulting cigarette in mid-air and held on. Joe gurgled triumphantly and struck a match.

Watching this performance from across the table, Bess, Joe's wife, considered screaming hysterically, but controlled herself. Instead she decided on another course . .

A year before they were married, when Joe and Bess first met, Bess had thought it was cute. Like all of Joe's ways. The first time it happened they had dined at a tiny country inn. After the meal Joe had produced a cigarette, tried four times to successfully perform his trick, and succeeded on the fifth attempt. Joe was clever at other things, too.

But the cigarette gag was his special achievement. During the year that elapsed before they were married Bess must have seen him perform it a hundred times.

After the first hundred, Bess began to weary of the cigarette trick a little. She didn't say so, of course, because Joe was pretty proud of his achievement.

And so they were married. They went to Maine for a week's honeymoon, and Bess saw the cigarette trick performed, without variation, 21 times. They came back to Worcester and began housekeeping. Joe resumed work and is gone all day. Dinner was the only meal he ate at home, and so Bess had to watch the cigarette trick only once on week days and three times on Sunday. But that was enough— enough to drive her almost mad.

After six months of it she found herself waiting at the end of each meal for sight of Joe reaching for his cigarette, for sound of his gurgling laugh, for the vision of his triumphant grin. She felt like the condemned man who awaits the first shock of current.

She took measures to absent herself at the ritual, but they failed. Joe required an audience and he always waited patiently for her return. He expected her smile of approval.

Bess realized Joe thought the cigarette trick a noteworthy accomplishment. He was vain. It wouldn't do to ask him to stop. His ego couldn't stand the gaff. No, she had to think of some other way and think of it quickly, before the funny wagon backed up to their door one day and took her away . .

Joe applied the match to his cigarette, inhaled deeply and exhaled contentedly. His look was the look of a man of smugness, complacency, superiority. Joe was clever. Joe knew it. He was the life of every party, because he knew so many cute tricks.

Bess reached for the cigarette box. She drew forth a cigarette. She extended her left hand outward horizontally, palm down. She placed the cigarette thereon. She suspended her right hand above the wrist of her left and smiled at Joe.

Joe's idle interest quickened. He was amused. Poor Bess.

"Try it," Joe urged patronizingly, "Go ahead and try it. See how you make out."

Bess tried it. She smacked her left wrist sharply. Up bounded the cigarette, somersaulted. Bess' mouth opened. Her head remained stationary. The white cylinder, as if responding to a magnet, darted toward her lips. She caught it and hung on.

Joe's jaw dropped. His eyes bulged. He gaped.

Bess gurgled triumphantly and struck a match. "The first try." she chortled. "No four out of five for me."

Joe Frazer no longer performs his cigarette trick for the entertainment of wife and friends. Bess is happy. She hopes Joe won't develop any more cute tricks. It takes too much time and patience to perfect them. Two hours every day for two months.