He patted his breast pocket again, and of course it was still empty, cigarettes hadn't mysteriously appeared in it since he last checked. He walked over to the desk and shook a cigarette out of the pack and lit it, relaxing as the nicotine soothed the anxiety it had largely created. That was all smoking did for you, it poured oil on waters it had troubled in the first place, and what earthly good did it do him to know that? He'd known that for years, and he went on smoking the fucking things all the same.