The episode of the cigarettes happened in this way.
Stokes, one of Gortre's fellow-curates, came to supper one night in Lincoln's Inn.
Spence was there also, as it was one of his free nights.
About ten o'clock supper was over and they proposed to have a little music. Stokes was a fine pianist, and he had brought some of the nocturnes and ballads of Chopin with him, to try on the little black-cased piano which stood at an obtuse angle with the end of the large sitting-room.
"Will you smoke, Stokes?" Spence said.
"Thank you, I'll have a cigarette," the young man replied. "I can't stand cigars, and I've left my pipe at the Clergy House."
They looked for cigarettes in the silver box lined with cedar which stood on the mantel-shelf, but some one had smoked them all and the box was empty.
"Never mind," Spence said; "I've been meaning to run out and get a late Westminster and I'll buy some cigarettes, too. There's a shop at the Holborn end of the Lane, next to the shop where the oysters come from, and it won't be shut yet."
In a few minutes he came back with several packets of cigarettes in his hand. "I've brought Virginian," he said; "I know you can't stand Egyptian, none of us can, and if these are cheap, they're good, too."
Till eleven o'clock Stokes played to them—Chopin's wild music of melancholy and fire—and as the hour struck he went home.