"Well, you know I can't very well take you with me," she said.

"Oh, I couldn't leave my business, anyway," he said, and he laughed.




X


I had noticed the vast and splendid club-houses in the best places in the
city, and I had often wondered about their life, which seemed to me a
blind groping towards our own, though only upon terms that forbade it to
those who most needed it. The clubs here are not like our groups, the
free association of sympathetic people, though one is a little more
literary, or commercial, or scientific, or political than another; but
the entrance to each is more or less jealously guarded; there is an
initiation-fee, and there are annual dues, which are usually heavy enough
to exclude all but the professional and business classes, though there
are, of course, successful artists and authors in them. During the past
winter I visited some of the most characteristic, where I dined and
supped with the members, or came alone when one of these put me down, for
a fortnight or a month.

They are equipped with kitchens and cellars, and their wines and dishes
are of the best. Each is, in fact, like a luxurious private house on a
large scale; outwardly they are palaces, and inwardly they have every
feature and function of a princely residence complete, even to a certain
number of guest-chambers, where members may pass the night, or stay