Membership in many athletic associations may be had by walking in and paying dues; also many country golf-clubs are as free to the public as country inns; but joining a purely social club of rank and exclusiveness is a very different matter.  A man to be eligible for membership in such a club must not only be completely a gentleman, but he must have friends among the members who like him enough to be willing to propose him and second him and write letters for him; and furthermore he must be disliked by no one—­at least not sufficiently for any member to object seriously to his company.

There are two ways of joining a club; by invitation and by making application or having it made for you.  To join by invitation means that you are invited when the club is started to be one of the founders or charter members, or if you are a distinguished citizen you may at the invitation of the governors become an honorary member, or in a small or informal club you may become an ordinary member by invitation or suggestion of the governors that you would be welcome.  A charter member pays dues, but not always an initiation fee; an honorary member pays neither dues nor initiation, he is really a permanent guest of the club.  A life member is one who pays his dues for twenty years or so in a lump sum, and is exempted from dues even if he lives to be a hundred.  Few clubs have honorary members and none have more than half a dozen, so that this type of membership may as well be disregarded.

The ordinary members of a club are either resident, meaning that they live within fifty miles of the club; or non-resident, living beyond that distance and paying less dues but having the same privileges.

In certain of the London clubs, one or two New York ones, and the leading club in several other cities, it is not unusual for a boy’s name to be put up for membership as soon as he is born.  If his name comes up while he is a minor, it is laid aside until after his twenty-first birthday and then put at the head of the list of applicants and voted upon at the next meeting of the governors.

In all clubs in which membership is limited and much sought after, the waiting list is sure to be long and a name takes anywhere from five to more than ten years to come up.

=HOW A NAME IS “PUT UP"=

Since a gentleman is scarcely likely to want to join a club in which the members are not his friends, he tells a member of his family, or an intimate friend, that he would like to join the Nearby Club, and adds, “Do you mind putting me up?  I will ask Dick to second me.”  The friend says, “I’ll be very glad to,” and Dick says the same.  It is still more likely that the suggestion to join comes from a friend, who says one day, “Why don’t you join the Nearby Club?  It would be very convenient for you.”  The other says, “I think I should like to,” and the first replies, “Let me put you up, and Dick will be only too glad to second you.”