The Cigarette Case

The Cigarette Case is a 1911 short story by Oliver Onions. It can be read online here. You can listen to it via Librivox here. It begins,

"A cigarette, Loder?" I said, offering my case. For the moment Loder was not smoking; for long enough he had not been talking.

"Thanks," he replied, taking not only the cigarette, but the case also. The others went on talking; Loder became silent again; but I noticed that he kept my cigarette case in his hand, and looked at it from time to time with an interest that neither its design nor its costliness seemed to explain. Presently I caught his eye.

"A pretty case," he remarked, putting it down on the table. "I once had one exactly like it."

I answered that they were in every shop window.

"Oh yes," he said, putting aside any question of rarity. "I lost mine."

"Oh?…"

He laughed. "Oh, that's all right -I got it back again- don't be afraid I'm going to claim yours. But the way I lost it-found it -the whole thing- was rather curious. I've never been able to explain it. I wonder if you could?"

I answered that I certainly couldn't till I'd heard it, whereupon Loder, taking up the silver case again and holding it in his hand as he talked, began:

"This happened in Provence, when I was about as old as Marsham there- and every bit as romantic. I was there with Carroll -you remember poor old Carroll and what a blade of a boy he was- as romantic as four Marshams rolled into one. (Excuse me, Marsham, won't you? It's a romantic tale, you see, or at least the setting is.) We were in Provence, Carroll and I; twenty-four or thereabouts; romantic, as I say; and -and this happened.