Cigars

	A Jermyn Street tobacconist's. Stephen is behind the counter, Hugh 
	isn't.


Hugh		Good morning.

Stephen		I beg your pardon?

Hugh		I said good morning.

Stephen		Oh sir. You've not heard?

Hugh		Heard what?

Stephen		Oh sir.

Hugh		What?

Stephen		Sir, I think I am a generous man, and I will happily bear many
		things. Burdens, architectural down-loads, even perhaps on fine
		summer days, your children. But bad tidings, sir ... bad
		tidings are too much for an inelastic old fool, such as you are
		currently experiencing, even to bear.

Hugh		Bad tidings?

Stephen		Suffice to say he's expected to make a full recovery.

Hugh		Who is?

Stephen		Call Nick Ross.

Hugh		What?

Stephen		Call Nick Ross is doing as well as can be expected.
		Meanwhiletime, a nation can only hold its breath in silent
		prayer and reflect in its quieter moments that flu can be a
		horrible and a very beastly thing.

Hugh		Nick Ross has got flu?

Stephen		Call Nick Ross is, according to sources close to Call Nick
		Ross, ill with the flu, sir, yes. How callous and casually
		violent your airy description of the goodness of the morning
		now sounds in your ears.

Hugh		Right. I'd like to buy a box of cigars, please.

Stephen		Cigars, of course. For smoking?

Hugh		Well, yes.

Stephen		Well, yes. Well, yes. Did two finer words in our language ever
		join hands and creep nervously down the aisle of utterance than
		"well, yes"? If they did, it was without the help of a
		reputable catering firm, of that I am absolutely tall.

Hugh		What else would I use cigars for?

Stephen		Sir, the thought flitted across my knees that you might be
		thinking of using cigars as a means of personal transport
		around the crowded streets of our city. They are small,
		manoeuvrable, easy to park, and use almost no petrol.

Hugh		But they don't move.

Stephen		Sir is quick and alive to the single disadvantage of cigars in
		this respect. They do not, as Winston Churchill himself would
		not have been ashamed to say, move.

Hugh		Well, no, I want to smoke them.

Stephen		Sir wants to smoke cigars. He wants to take them out of the
		box, singly or in threes, put them in his mouth lengthways and
		apply a flame to the furthest end. Do I misjudge my man so
		terribly? I think not.

Hugh		No, that's right.

Stephen		Does sir imagine that he will be in a dressed state of affairs
		when the mood of ensmokement descends?

Hugh		I beg your pardon?

Stephen		Will sir be sheathed in habiliments, I am in the rapidly-
		expanding business of wondering, or will he be allowing the
		breath of God to caress his flinty flanks unhindered by layers
		of silk and, oblique stroke or, corduroy?

Hugh		I will be dressed, yes.

Stephen		Sir will be dressed. Will he, in this consummately dressed
		state, be in the company of four young walls and ceiling, or
		will he be starkly alone?

Hugh		Outside?

Stephen		I believe that the young Francis Bacon coined the term
		"outside" to describe just such a state of exteriority as I
		have been fumbling to express.

Hugh		I doubt I'll be smoking outside.

Stephen		Let me reach down into my word bag once again and feel for
		fitting shapes and textures to pull out and surprise you with.
		Ah, my word-fingers close around "dressed" and they sense the
		smooth outlines of "inside". Sir will be experiencing the fumal
		joys of his cigaroid pleasure-cocks while "dressed" and while
		"inside". I HARDLY THINK I CAN PUT IT MORE PLAINLY THAN THAT.

Hugh		Forgive me for asking, but what on earth has it got to do with
		anything whether or not I'm inside or outside, nude or clothed?

Stephen		NUDE! "Nude!" he said, smiting his brow with the back of his
		mind. Nude was the very word I could have used earlier. It
		would have saved us an hundred syllables of pointless and
		unutterably tedious exchange earlier on. Why did I not simply
		say, "Will sir be nude?" My aunt and my cousin (a cinema
		projectionist in Hove, as was) will never forgive me.

Hugh		You haven't answered my question.

Stephen		I am now busy until the end of the month wondering if sir will
		allow me to answer his simple, manly question with one of my
		own?

Hugh		Oh, very well.

Stephen		You are kindness herself.

Hugh		Well?

Stephen		Sir?

Hugh		What is your question?

Stephen		Stand back to admire it, sir, because though I say so without
		an interpreter, it's the best question asked since man first
		arose from out the primordial cup-a-soup and asked "What is the
		word for that tiny sleeve of plastic at the end of a shoe-
		lace?" My question is this and it comes without sponsorship of
		any kind: "What are you doing here?"

Hugh		Well, I think I'm trying to buy some cigars.

Stephen		Some? Some cigars? Oh sir, that is the most vest-dampening
		attitude I have heard since Peter Lilley was in here, trying to
		buy my ...

Hugh		Trying to buy your?

Stephen		My silence, sir. You tell me you are trying to buy "some 
		cigars". This is not a shop that sells "some cigars", this is a
		shop that sells only the very finest cigars that sexual favours
		can buy. Cigars that think, that feel: cigars that adjust
		themselves to your mood and your state of arousal.

Hugh		Are you saying that you sell different cigars for indoor and
		outdoor use and different cigars for being clothed or
		unclothed?

Stephen		No sir. I am emphatically not saying that. But I could. By God,
		with a fair following wind, a sip of Aqua Libra, a week's
		rehearsal and a nod from you, I could say exactly that.

Hugh		I like a nice bit of fresh sleep. Not like that tinned stuff.