complicity; but
once for all, let me inform you that I regard you and your machinations
with unmingled horror and disgust, and I will leave no stone unturned to
crush your vile conspiracy."

"My dear fellow," replied Zero, with an air of some complacency, "I am
well accustomed to these human weaknesses. Disgust? I have felt it
myself; it speedily wears off. I think none the worse, I think the more
of you, for this engaging frankness. And in the meanwhile, what are you
to do? You find yourself, if I interpret rightly, in very much the same
situation as Charles the Second (possibly the least degraded of your
British sovereigns) when he was taken into the confidence of the thief.
To denounce me is out of the question; and what else can you attempt?
No, dear Mr. Somerset, your hands are tied; and you find yourself
condemned, under pain of behaving like a cad, to be that same charming
and intellectual companion who delighted me last night."

"At least," cried Somerset, "I can, and do, order you to leave this
house."

"Ah!" cried the plotter, "but there I fail to follow you. You may, if
you please, enact the part of Judas; but if, as I suppose, you recoil
from that extremity of meanness, I am, on my side, far too intelligent
to leave these lodgings, in which I please myself exceedingly, and from
which you lack the power to drive me. No, no, dear sir; here I am, and
here I propose to stay."

"I repeat," cried Somerset, beside himself with a sense of his own
weakness, "I repeat that I give you warning. I am master of this house;
and I emphatically give you warning."

"A week's warning?" said the imperturbable conspirator. "Very well: we
will talk of it a week from now. That is arranged; and, in the
meanwhile, I observe my breakfast growing cold. Do, dear Mr. Somerset,
since you find yourself condemned, for a week at least, to the society
of a very interesting character, display some of that open favour, some
of that interest in life's obscurer sides, which stamp the character of
the true artist. Hang me, if you will, to-morrow; but to-day show
yourself divested of the scruple of the burgess, and sit down pleasantly
to share my meal."

"Man!" cried Somerset, "do you understand my sentiments?"

"Certainly," replied Zero; "and I respect them! Would you be outdone in
such a contest? will you alone be partial? and in this nineteenth
century, cannot two gentlemen of education agree to differ on a point of
politics? Come, si