And then the surroundings. An oak-panelled chamber, of course--black oak, with grotesque and diabolic carvings jutting out at the angles of the room; a crystal globe upon a porphyry pedestal; a mysterious picture, with a curtain drawn before it--certain death being the fate of him who dared to raise that curtain by so much as a corner. A mantel-piece of black marble, and a collection of pistols and scimitars, swords and yataghans--especially yataghans--glimmering and flashing in the firelight. A little show of eccentricity in the way of household pets: a bear under the sofa, and a tame rattlesnake coiled upon the hearth-rug. This was the sort of thing the penny public expected of Sigismund Smith; and, lo, here was a young man with perennial ink-smudges upon his face, and an untidy chamber in the Temple, with nothing more romantic than a waste-paper basket, a litter of old letters and tumbled proofs, and a cracked teapot simmering upon the hob. This was the young man who described the reckless extravagance of a Montefiasco's sumptuous chamber, the mysterious elegance of a Diana Firmiani's dimly-lighted boudoir. This was the young man in whose works there were more masked doors, and hidden staircases, and revolving picture-frames and sliding panels, than in all the old houses in Great Britain; and a greater length of vaulted passages than would make an underground railway from the Scottish border to the Land's End. This was the young man who, in an early volume of poems--a failure, as it is the nature of all early volumes of poems to be--had cried in passionate accents to some youthful member of the aristocracy, surname unknown-- "Lady Mable, Lady May, no pæan in your praise I'll sing; My shattered lyre all mutely tells The tortured hand that broke the string. Go, fair and false, while jangling bells Through golden waves of sunshine ring; Go, mistress of a thousand spells: But know, midst those you've left forlorn, _One_, lady, gives you scorn for scorn." "Now, George," Mr. Smith said, as he pushed away a very dirty inkstand, and wiped his pen upon the cuff of his coat,--"now, George, I can attend to the rights of hospitality. You must be hungry after your journey, poor old boy! What'll you take?" There were no cupboards in the room, which was very bare of furniture, and the only vestiges of any kind of refreshment were a brown crockery-ware teapot upon the hob, and a roll and pat of butter upon a plate on the mantel-piece. "Have something!" Sigismund said. "I know there isn't much, because, you see, I never have time to attend to that sort of thing. Have some bread and marmalade?" He drew out a drawer in the desk before which he was sitting, and triumphantly displayed a pot of marmalade with a spoon in it. "Bread and marmalade and cold tea's capital," he said; "you'll try some, George, won't you? and then we'll go home to Camberwell."