ning, Mr. Edward Challoner
pioneered himself under an umbrella to the door of the Cigar Divan in
Rupert Street. It was a place he had visited but once before: the memory
of what had followed on that visit and the fear of Somerset having
prevented his return. Even now, he looked in before he entered; but the
shop was free of customers.

The young man behind the counter was so intently writing in a penny
version-book, that he paid no heed to Challoner's arrival. On a second
glance, it seemed to the latter that he recognised him.

"By Jove," he thought, "unquestionably Somerset!"

And though this was the very man he had been so sedulously careful to
avoid, his unexplained position at the receipt of custom changed
distaste to curiosity.

"'Or opulent rotunda strike the sky,'" said the shopman to himself, in
the tone of one considering a verse. "I suppose it would be too much to
say 'orotunda,' and yet how noble it were! 'Or opulent orotunda strike
the sky.' But that is the bitterness of arts; you see a good effect, and
some nonsense about sense continually intervenes."

"Somerset, my dear fellow," said Challoner, "is this a masquerade?"

"What? Challoner!" cried the shopman. "I am delighted to see you. One
moment, till I finish the octave of my sonnet: only the octave." And
with a friendly waggle of the hand, he once more buried himself in the
commerce of the Muses. "I say," he said presently, looking up, "you seem
in wonderful preservation: how about the hundred pounds?"

"I have made a small inheritance from a great aunt in Wales," replied
Challoner modestly.

"Ah," said Somerset, "I very much doubt the legitimacy of inheritance.
The State, in my view, should collar it. I am now going through a stage
of socialism and poetry," he added apologetically, as one who spoke of a
course of medicinal waters.

"And are you really the person of the--establishment?" inquired
Challoner, deftly evading the word "shop."

"A vendor, sir, a vendor," returned the other, pocketing his poesy. "I
help old Happy and Glorious. Can I offer you a weed?"

"Well, I scarcely like ..." began Challoner.

"Nonsense, my dear fellow," cried the shopman. "We are very proud of the
business; and the old man, let me inform you, besides being the most
egregious of created beings from the point of view of ethics, is
literally sprung from the loins of kings. '_De Godall je suis le
fervent._' There is only one Godall.--By the way," he added, as
Ch