Before he had quite realised the full force of the cataclysm in which he was involved, he had parted with the demanded forty-two shillings, and learned from the vivacious damsel the appalling fact that his new purchase was named Beelzebub. Something instinctively told him that he had parted too with his peace of mind, and as he was towed out of the bazaar premises in the wake of a yelping and plunging terrier, with an accompaniment of noise and publicity uncongenial to his natural modesty, he was dimly aware that he had started on a downgrade path that led to no good and peaceful end. To the ordinary intellect his position might not have appeared irretrievable; the dog which he had been rushed into buying, and whose personality inspired him with the strongest repugnance, was not necessarily a fixture. An immediate purchaser might be discovered, or the undesired acquisition might be given away, lost, or otherwise disposed of.