one of their qualities that they are always just round the corner;
another, that their stewards are too familiar; another, that they--in
the opinion of the other members--are run too much for the convenience
of one in particular.

In this case it was Fox who kept the dinner waiting. I sat in the little
smoking-room and, from behind a belated morning paper, listened to the
conversation of the three or four journalists who represented the
members. I felt as a new boy in a new school feels on his first
introduction to his fellows.

There was a fossil dramatic critic sleeping in an arm-chair before the
fire. At dinner-time he woke up, remarked:

"You should have seen Fanny Ellsler," and went to sleep again.

Sprawling on a red velvet couch was a _beau jeune homme_, with the
necktie of a Parisian-American student. On a chair beside him sat a
personage whom, perhaps because of his plentiful lack of h's, I took for
a distinguished foreigner.

They were talking about a splendid subject for a music-hall dramatic
sketch of some sort--afforded by a bus driver, I fancy.

I heard afterward that my Frenchman had been a costermonger and was now
half journalist, half financier, and that my art student was an employee
of one of the older magazines.

"Dinner's on the table, gents," the steward said from the door. He went
toward the sleeper by the fire. "I expect Mr. Cunningham will wear that