In the first scramble of the alarm, Somerset made good his escape, and came out upon the Euston Road, his head spinning, his body sick with hunger, and his pockets destitute of coin. Yet as he continued to walk the pavements, he wondered to find in his heart a sort of peaceful exultation, a great content, a sense, as it were, of divine presence and the kindliness of fate; and he was able to tell himself that even if the worst befell, he could now starve with a certain comfort since Zero was expunged. Late in the afternoon, he found himself at the door of Mr. Godall’s shop; and being quite unmanned by his long fast, and scarce considering what he did, he opened the glass door and entered. ‘Ha!’ said Mr. Godall, ‘Mr. Somerset! Well, have you met with an adventure? Have you the promised story? Sit down, if you please; suffer me to choose you a cigar of my own special brand; and reward me with a narrative in your best style.’ ‘I must not take a cigar,’ said Somerset. ‘Indeed!’ said Mr. Godall. ‘But now I come to look at you more closely, I perceive that you are changed. My poor boy, I hope there is nothing wrong?’ Somerset burst into tears. _EPILOGUE OF THE CIGAR DIVAN_ On a certain day of lashing rain in the December of last year, and between the hours of nine and ten in the morning, 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.