286 286 Epilogue of the Cigar Divan Epilogue of the Cigar Divan 299 299 p. viiiA NOTE FOR THE READER p. viii It is within the bounds of possibility that you may take up this volume, and yet be unacquainted with its predecessor: the first series of New Arabian Nights. The loss is yours—and mine; or to be more exact, my publishers’. But if you are thus unlucky, the least I can do is to pass you a hint. When you shall find a reference in the following pages to one Theophilus Godall of the Bohemian Cigar Divan in Rupert Street, Soho, you must be prepared to recognise, under his features, no less a person than Prince Florizel of Bohemia, formerly one of the magnates of Europe, now dethroned, exiled, impoverished, and embarked in the tobacco trade. New Arabian Nights R. L. S. p. 1PROLOGUE OF THE CIGAR DIVAN p. 1 In the city of encounters, the Bagdad of the West, and, to be more precise, on the broad northern pavement of Leicester Square, two young men of five- or six-and-twenty met after years of separation. The first, who was of a very smooth address and clothed in the best fashion, hesitated to recognise the pinched and shabby air of his companion. ‘What!’ he cried, ‘Paul Somerset!’ ‘I am indeed Paul Somerset,’ returned the other, ‘or what remains of him after a well-deserved experience of poverty and law. But in you, Challoner, I can perceive no change; and time may be said, without hyperbole, to write
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