One morning as he was starting with the others for work he stopped at the pine counter for his usual sack of tobacco.
"There's no more for ye," said Corrigan."Your account's closed.Ye are a losing investment.No, not even tobaccy, my son.No more tobaccy on account.If ye want to work on and eat, do so, but the smoke of ye has all ascended.'Tis my advice that ye hunt a new job.""I have no tobaccy to smoke in my pipe this day, Mr.Corrigan," said Burney, not quite understanding that such a thing could happen to him.
"Earn it," said Corrigan, "and then buy it."Burney stayed on.He knew of no other job.At first he did not realize that tobacco had got to be his father and mother, his confessor and sweetheart, and wife and child.
For three days he managed to fill his pipe from the other men's sacks, and then they shut him off, one and all.They told him, rough but friendly, that of all things in the world tobacco must be quickest forthcoming to a fellow-man desiring it, but that beyond the immediate temporary need requisition upon the store of a comrade is pressed with great danger to friendship.