Why were we called cubs? My dictionary, in its very rare attempts at cracking jokes, follows up the word CUB with this, in brackets: ‘(Etymology unknown)’. But that doesn’t matter. More wide-awake than myself, the other cub nudged me and said: ‘Better dowse that cigarette. Here’s the bishop.’ We were covering a Confirmation ceremony and there is not much to write about concerning that, for the Church is immutable and is ignored by the Daily Express. The bishop completely ignored both of us. ‘How well,’ I said savagely, ‘that thing at my feet looks. It’s not a butt but half a cigarette. For all the attention His Lordship paid, we might as well have been smoking cigars. Or long hookah pipes.’ ‘Aw shut up. Smoking is very bad for you, anyway.’ Are You a Dowser? Yet out of an ill thing good comes. That phrase ‘Dowse that cigarette’ stayed in my mind. I thought the verb was incorrectly used and consulted my books of reference, my main idea being, I think, to tell off this unmannerly companion.
