acquaintance with Walter Sickert and other august elders who
dwelt there. It was Rothenstein that took me to see, in
Cambridge Street, Pimlico, a young man whose drawings were
already famous among the few--Aubrey Beardsley, by name.
With Rothenstein I paid my first visit to the Bodley Head. By
him I was inducted into another haunt of intellect and daring,
the domino room of the Cafe Royal.

There, on that October evening--there, in that exuberant vista of
gilding and crimson velvet set amidst all those opposing mirrors
and upholding caryatids, with fumes of tobacco ever rising to
the painted and pagan ceiling, and with the hum of presumably
cynical conversation broken into so sharply now and again by
the clatter of dominoes shuffled on marble tables, I drew a deep
breath, and `This indeed,' said I to myself, `is life!'

It was the hour before dinner. We drank vermouth. Those who
knew Rothenstein were pointing him out to those who knew him
only by name. Men were constantly coming in through the
swing-doors and wandering slowly up and down in search of
vacant tables, or of tables occupied by friends. One of these
rovers interested me because I was sure he wanted to catch
Rothenstein's eye. He had twice passed our table, with a
hesitating look; but Rothenstein, in the thick of a disquisition on
Puvis de Chavannes, had not seen him. He was a stooping,
shambling person, rather tall, very pale, with longish and
brownish hair. He had a thin vague beard--or rather, he had a
chin on which a large number of hairs weakly curled and
clustered to cover its retreat. He was an odd-looking person; but
in the 'nineties odd apparitions were more frequent, I think, than