O’WALKER. (_aside_) Brown—Little Windmill Street—cubas. (_snatches cigar case out of BROWN’S hand—takes out a cuba and examines it, aside_) This is one of Amelia Jones’s cubas—I’ll swear to it—he’s a Brown—he says he’s a Brown, and if a Brown, why not the “fondest of Brown’s,” if I could only make him the means of getting those infernal letters of mine back—I have it. (_aloud and suddenly seizing BROWN’S hand_) Brown, it is my painful duty instantly to plunge a dagger into your manly bosom. (_BROWN starts_) Don’t be alarmed, I speak figuratively—in other words—(_in a loud and mysterious whisper_) go elsewhere for your cubas. BROWN. Ah! O’WALKER. (_aside_) It _is_ the fondest of Brown’s. (_aloud in the same low earnest tone_) Brown, you are deceived. BROWN. What do you mean? O’WALKER. I mean that Amelia Jones—— BROWN. Hush! O’WALKER. I repeat, that Amelia Jones. BROWN. Hush! (_looking about him and then to O’WALKER_) don’t speak so loud—I’m afraid you’ll call me a sad dog when I unfold my tale—I shan’t be offended if you do—for I know I’m a shocking good-for-nothing rascal, but I can’t help it—that’s the melancholy part of it—I can’t help it. Listen! As I was sauntering about the West End one evening last week, I suddenly found that I had lost my way, and seeing a gentleman in a Highland dress standing outside the door of a tobacconist’s shop, in the act of taking a pinch of snuff, I accosted him and civilly asked him where I was; he didn’t think proper to reply, which I inferred from being a Highlander he didn’t understand English—consequently, I entered the shop, and there I beheld a sweet creature—I bought a cigar, and though I had never smoked before in all my life, I lighted it—I positively lighted it, and then I smoked and chatted, and chatted and smoked, till, as it was getting _rather_ late, and _I_ was getting very poorly, I took my leave of the fair creature and went home. I’m ashamed to say I was there again, the next day, and the next day, and the day after that; and as every pound of cigars I bought of her seemed to ingratiate me more and more in her good opinion, in less than a week I found I had laid in a sufficient stock to open a tobacconist’s shop of my own—in fact I became so fascinated—so charmed—so—so—— O’WALKER. Spooney! BROWN. Exactly—so spooney—that I was on the point of asking her to become Mrs. Brown, when I suddenly recollected that I was engaged to another. O’WALKER. Engaged to another? BROWN. Hush! A woman who can’t live without seeing me twice a day and that I haven’t been near for a week. O’WALKER. Then go to her, Brown, and forget the perfidious Amelia. She’s made a fool of you, Brown, nobody can look at you and doubt it. BROWN. How? O’WALKER. Simply because she’s engaged to be married. I happen to know the fact, because the gentleman is the friend of an intimate friend of a friend of mine, I don’t know why he should be, but he is.