onyx table, and put himself into another grandfather's chair of
heliotrope plush. And in the cushioned quietude of the smoking-room,
where light-shod acolytes served gin-and-angostura as if serving
gin-and-angostura had been a religious rite, Sullivan went through an
extraordinary process of unchaining himself. His form seemed to be
crossed and re-crossed with chains--gold chains. At the end of one gold
chain was a gold cigarette-case, from which he produced gold-tipped
cigarettes. At the end of another was a gold matchbox. At the end of
another, which he may or may not have drawn out by mistake, were all
sorts of things--knives, keys, mirrors, and pencils. A singular
ceremony! But I was now in the world of gold.

And then smoke ascended from the gold-tipped cigarettes as incense from
censers, and Sullivan lifted his tinted glass of gin-and-angostura, and
I, perceiving that such actions were expected of one in a theatrical
club, responsively lifted mine, and the glasses collided, and Sullivan
said:

"Here's to the end of the great family quarrel."

"I'm with you," said I.

And we sipped.

My father had quarrelled with his mother in an epoch when even musical
comedies were unknown, and the quarrel had spread, as family quarrels
do, like a fire or the measles. The punching of my head by Sullivan in
the extinct past had been one of its earliest consequences.

"May the earth lie lightly on them!" said Sullivan.