The waiter seemed to think that was a very poor sort of breakfast, and suggested some nice chops or a bit of steak or “ham and eggs, sah,” all of which made Van Bibber shudder.  The waiter finally concluded that Van Bibber was poor and couldn’t afford any more, which, as it happened to be more or less true, worried that young gentleman; so much so, indeed, that when the waiter brought him a check for fifteen cents, Van Bibber handed him a half-dollar and told him to “keep the change.”

The satisfaction he felt in this wore off very soon when he appreciated that, while he had economized in his breakfast, his vanity had been very extravagantly pampered, and he felt how absurd it was when he remembered he would not have spent more if he had gone to Delmonico’s in the first place.  He wanted one of those large black Regalias very much, but they cost entirely too much.  He went carefully through his pockets to see if he had one with him, but he had not, and he determined to get a pipe.  Pipes are always cheap.

“What sort of a pipe, sir?” said the man behind the counter.

“A cheap pipe,” said Van Bibber.

“But what sort?” persisted the man.

Van Bibber thought a brier pipe, with an amber mouth-piece and a silver band, would about suit his fancy.  The man had just such a pipe, with trade-marks on the brier and hall-marks and “Sterling” on the silver band.  It lay in a very pretty silk box, and there was another mouth-piece you could screw in, and a cleaner and top piece with which to press the tobacco down.  It was most complete, and only five dollars.  “Isn’t that a good deal for a pipe?” asked Van Bibber.  The man said, being entirely unprejudiced, that he thought not.  It was cheaper, he said, to get a good thing at the start.  It lasted longer.  And cheap pipes bite your tongue.  This seemed to Van Bibber most excellent reasoning.  Some Oxford-Cambridge mixture attracted Van Bibber on account of its name.  This cost one dollar more.  As he left the shop he saw a lot of pipes, brier and corn-cob and Sallie Michaels, in the window marked, “Any of these for a quarter.”  This made him feel badly, and he was conscious he was not making a success of his economy.  He started back to the club, but it was so hot that he thought he would faint before he got there; so he called a hansom, on the principle that it was cheaper to ride and keep well than to walk and have a sunstroke.

He saw some people that he knew going by in a cab with a pile of trunks on the top of it, and that reminded him that they had asked him to come down and see them off when the steamer left that afternoon.  So he waved his hand when they passed, and bowed to them, and cried, “See you later,” before he counted the consequences.  He did not wish to arrive empty-handed, so he stopped in at a florist’s and got a big basket of flowers and another of fruit, and piled them into the hansom.