| RUDYARD | 'And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke,' wrote late Victorian, ... Kipling |
| SMOKE | Kipling's word for "a good cigar" |
| PANATELLA | Cigar is a planet a la mode (9) |
| OURMUTUALFRIEND | Novel that Charles Dickens wrote late in his career: 3 wds. |
| WITCH | A charming woman but a bad speller |
| LOLA | Woman who "walks like a woman but talks like a man" in a Kinks song |
| MATERNITYTEST | A medical test to determine if a woman is the mother of a particular child (9,4) |
| FREUD | Scholars doubt that he ever said "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" |
| MASHED | Mad about a woman but completely crushed |
| FLUE | What is a smoke passage in a chimney (4) |
| NEER | "A woman is a foreign land... a man shall ___ quite understand" (Patmore) |
| VENEER | It's a thin slice but a good deal, maybe |
| GLOSSARY | It's a loss for Gary but a good reference nonetheless (8) |
| SICK | "I'm so ___ of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for!" ("Little Women," 2019) |
| MATERNITYLEAVE | Paid absence from work to which a woman is entitled before and after childbirth (9,5) |
| CASHCOW | Animal you don't pay for with cheque - but a good money earner (4,3) |
| CIGAR | "Sometimes a cigar is just a ___" |
| ROMEO | "Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs" speaker |
| HOLYSMOKE | Good Lord, very good cigar! (4,5) |
| BRIADSLEY | Aubrey, Late Victorian artist and illustrator (9) |
