“That I am, your lordship,” said the proprietor, sucking upon his cigar and blowing out a puff of smoke in the shape of a sheep. “Smokey Joe’s my name and I am the purveyor of the finest cigars in Toy City.”

“Well, be that as it may,” said Jack.

“It may well be because it is, your lordship.”

“Right,” said Jack. “Well, now we’ve established that, I require your assistance concerning a cigar.”

“Then you have certainly come to the right place, your lordship. If there is anything that needs knowing about cigars and isn’t known to myself, then I’ll be blessed as a nodding spaniel dog and out of the window with me and into the duck pond.”

“Quite so,” said Jack.

“And you can use my head for a tinker’s teapot and boil my boots in lard.”

“Most laudable,” said Jack.

“I’ll go further than that,” said Smokey Joe. “You can take my wedding tackle and –”

“I think you’ve made your point,” said Jack. “You know about cigars.”

“And pipes,” said Smokey Joe. “Although that’s only a hobby of mine. But every man should have a hobby.”

“Well, if they can’t get a girlfriend,” said Jack.

“You are the very personification of wisdom.”

“Well …”

Eddie gave Jack’s left knee a sound head-butting. “Get on with it,” he whispered.

“Cigars,” said Jack, to Smokey Joe. “Well, one cigar in particular.”

“Would it be the Golden Sunrise Corona?” asked Smokey Joe. “The veritable king of cigars, made from tobacco watered by unicorn’s wee-wee and rolled upon the thigh scales[6] of golden-haired mermaids?”

“No.” said Jack. “But you sell such cigars?”

“No,” said Smokey Joe, “but a proprietor must have his dreams. And speaking of dreams, last night I dreamed that I was a chicken.”

“A chicken?” said Jack.

“They worry me,” said Smokey Joe.

“They do?” said Jack. Eddie head-butted his left knee once more. “Well, I’m sure that’s very interesting,” said Jack, “but I have urgent business that will not wait. I need a straightforward answer to a simple question. Do you think you could furnish me with same?”

Smokey Joe nodded, puffed out a question-mark-shaped smoke cloud and said, “I’d be prepared to give it a try, but things are rarely as simple as they seem. Take those chickens, for example –”

“I am in a hurry,” said Jack. “I merely wish to know about a cigar.”

Smokey Joe let free a sigh of relief, which billowed considerable smoke. “Not chickens, then?” said he.

“No,” said Jack. “What is your problem with chickens?”

“The scale of them,” said Smokey Joe.

“Chickens don’t have scales,” said Jack. “Chickens have feathers.”

Smokey Joe fixed Jack with a troubling eye. “Beware the chickens,” said he. “If not now, then later. And somewhere else. I am Smokey Joe, the only cigar store proprietor in Toy City. I am one of a kind. I am special.”

Jack sighed somewhat at the word, but Smokey Joe continued.

“I have the special eye and I see trouble lying in wait ahead of you. Trouble that comes in the shape of a chicken.” Smokey Joe blew out a plume of cigar smoke, which momentarily took the shape of a chicken before fading into the air of what had now become a cigar store somewhat overladen with “atmosphere”.

Eddie Bear shuddered. “Just ask him, Jack,” he whispered, and fumbled the cigar butt from his trenchcoat pocket. Jack took the cigar butt and placed it before Smokey Joe on his glass countertop.

“This cigar,” said Jack, “did it come from this establishment?”

Smokey Joe leaned forward, brass cogs whirring, cigar smoke engulfing his head. He viewed the cigar butt and nodded. “One of mine,” he said. “A Turquoise Torpedo.”

“But it’s brown,” said Jack.

“But what’s in a name?” said Smokey Joe. “Or what’s not? It may be brown, but it tastes like turquoise.”

“And it is one of yours?”

“It is.”

“Then my question is this: do you recall selling any of these cigars recently?”

Smokey Joe nodded. “Of course I do. I recall the selling of every cigar, because in truth I don’t sell many.”

“And you sold one of these cigars recently?”

“I sold one hundred of these cigars yesterday evening.”

“One hundred,” said Jack. “That is an incredible number.”

“Really?” said Smokey Joe. “I always thought that the most incredible number must be two, because it is one more than just one, yet one less than any other number, no matter how great that number might be. And there must be an infinite number of numbers, mustn’t there be?”

“I’m sure there must,” said Jack. “But please tell me this: would it be possible for you to describe to me the individual who purchased those one hundred cigars from you yesterday?”

“Your lordship is surely mocking me,” said Smokey Joe, adding more smoke to his words.

“No, I’m not,” said Jack. “I’m well and truly not.”

“But your lordship surely knows who purchased those cigars.”

“No,” said Jack. “I well and truly don’t.”

“Of course you do,” said Smokey Joe.

“Of course I don’t,” said Jack.

“Do,” said Joe.

And, “Don’t,” said Jack.

And, “Do,” said Joe once more.

“Now listen,” said Jack, “I am not asking you a difficult question. Please will you tell me who purchased those cigars?”

“I will,” said Smokey Joe.

“Then do so,” said Jack.

“Then I will,” said Smokey Joe. And he did. “That bear with you,” he said.

4

“It wasn’t me.” And Eddie fell back in alarm. “It wasn’t me – I’m as innocent as.”

“It was you, you scoundrel.” And Smokey Joe huffed as he puffed. “I’d know the looks of you as I’d know the colour of moonlight, those mismatched eyes and your scruffy old paws.”

“It’s cinnamon plush,” Eddie protested. “I am an Anders Imperial.”

“Oh yes? Oh yes?” Smokey Joe did rockings and smoke came out of his ear holes. “You weren’t wearing that fedora when you came into this here establishment, but I’ll wager that under it there’s a bottle cap in your left ear.”

“That’s my special tag.” Eddie now cowered behind Jack’s legs. This was all a little much.

“Scoundrel and trickster,” puffed Smokey Joe, pointing an accusing cigar at this scoundrel and trickster.

“Now just stop this,” Jack said. “I feel certain that you have made some mistake.”

“Mistake?” said Smokey Joe and rolled his eyes, which seemed to smoke a little, too. “He took one hundred of my finest Turquoise Torpedoes and I demand proper payment.”

“I am confused,” said Jack. “You said that my associate here purchased these cigars from you.”

“With tomfoolery coin of the realm.”

“Still not fully understanding.” Jack gave his shoulders a shrug.

“Bogus coin, he paid me with. A high-denomination money note, in fact. I placed it into my cash register and moments after he left it went poof.”

“Poof?” said Jack, miming a kind of poof, as one might in such circumstances.

“Poof,” went Smokey Joe. “And never take up mime as a profession. The money note went poof in a poof of smoke and vanished away.”

“A poof of smoke?” said Jack, not troubling to mime such a thing.

“And of no smoke that I have ever seen and I’ve seen all but every kind.”

“I am most confused,” said Jack.

“And me also,” said Eddie. “And wrongly accused. Let’s be going now.”

“Oh no you don’t,” said Smokey Joe, and with the kind of ease that lent Jack the conviction that it was hardly the first time he had done such a thing, Smokey Joe drew out a pistol from beneath his counter and waggled it somewhat about.

“Now hold on,” said Jack. “There’s no need for that.”

“There’s every need,” said Smokey Joe. “You were thinking to depart.”

“Well, yes, we were.”

“And you cannot. We shall wait here together.”