He remained for nearly two hours lingering over this meal, while at the back of his mind the ditty about Shaftesbury-town and Yellow Bracken mingled with the fragrance of the old hostelry’s old wine. When at last he rose from the table, it occurred to him that Darnley Otter had mentioned on the previous day that both the brothers might be here this night. Led by a mysterious desire, just then⁠—not quite understood by himself⁠—for masculine society, he entered the little inner parlour of the Three Peewits. Here he found himself in a thick cloud of tobacco-smoke and a still thicker murmur of men’s voices. The change from his erotic musings into so social and crude an atmosphere was more bewildering to his mind than he had expected. He gazed round him, befogged and blinking.