"Can you muster eighty pounds between you?" he demanded.

Geraldine ostentatiously consulted his pocket-book, and replied in
the affirmative.

"Fortunate beings!" cried the young man. "Forty pounds is the
entry money of the Suicide Club."

"The Suicide Club," said the Prince, "why, what the devil is that?"

"Listen," said the young man; "this is the age of conveniences, and
I have to tell you of the last perfection of the sort. We have
affairs in different places; and hence railways were invented.
Railways separated us infallibly from our friends; and so
telegraphs were made that we might communicate speedier at great
distances. Even in hotels we have lifts to spare us a climb of
some hundred steps. Now, we know that life is only a stage to play
the fool upon as long as the part amuses us. There was one more
convenience lacking to modern comfort; a decent, easy way to quit
that stage; the back stairs to liberty; or, as I said this moment,
Death's private door. This, my two fellow-rebels, is supplied by
the Suicide Club. Do not suppose that you and I are alone, or even
exceptional in the highly reasonable desire that we profess. A
large number of our fellowmen, who have grown heartily sick of the
performance in which they are expected to join daily and all their
lives long, are only kept from flight by one or two considerations.
Some have families who would be shocked, or even blamed, if the
matter became public; others have a weakness at heart and recoil
from the circumstances of death. That is, to some extent, my own