The smoker

In the small bus that takes everyone to the airplane, a seven or eight-year-old boy in the group was smoking.

There was a Punjabi on the bus, a Sikh. He had a beard and a turban, and he looked like a saint. He said to the boy, “Did you get your father’s permission to smoke?”

The little boy said, “Does my father take my permission to smoke?”

So the elderly man kept quiet. The boy was so smart.

— 29 September 1984