old woodwork rubbed and shiny with age.  Shandygaff, we found, was not unknown to the servitor; and the cider that we saw Endymion beaming upon was a blithe, clear yellow, as merry to look at as a fine white wine.  Very well, very well indeed, we said to ourselves; let the world revolve; in the meantime, what is that printed in blackface type upon the menu?  We have looked upon the faces of many men, we have endured travail and toil and perplexity, we have written much rot and suffered much inward shame to contemplate it; but in the meantime (we said, gazing earnestly upon the face of Endymion), in the meantime, we repeated, and before destiny administers that final and condign chastisement that we ripely merit, let us sit here in the corner of the India House and be of good cheer.  And at this point, matters being so, and a second order of butter being already necessary, the waiter arrived with the Spanish omelet.

Homeward by the way of South Street, admiring the slender concave bows of fine ships—­the Mexico and the Santa Marta, for instance—­and privily wondering what were our chances of smelling blue water within the next quinquennium, we passed in mild and placid abandonment.  On Burling Slip, just where in former times there used to hang a sign KIPLING BREW (which always interested us), we saw a great, ragged, burly rogue sitting on a doorstep.  He had the beard of a buccaneer, the placid face of one at ease with fortune.  He hitched up his shirt and shifted from one ham to another with supreme and sunkissed contentment.  And Endymion, who sees all things as the beginnings of heavenly poems, said merrily:  “As I was walking on Burling Slip, I saw a seaman without a ship.”

      [Illustration]

SECRET TRANSACTIONS OF THE THREE HOURS FOR LUNCH CLUB

The doctor having been elected a member of the club, a meeting was held to celebrate the event.  Bowling Green, Esq., secretary, was instructed to prepare carefully confidential minutes.  Weather:  fair and tepid.  Wind:  N.N.E.  Course laid:  From starting line at a Church Street bookshop, where the doctor bought a copy of “Limbo,” by Aldous Huxley, to Pier 56, N.R.  Course made good:  the same.

The doctor was in excellent form.  On the Fourteenth Street car a human being was arguing fiercely and loudly with the conductor about some controversial matter touching upon fares and destinations.  The clamour was great.  Said the doctor, adjusting his eye-glass and gazing with rebuke toward the disputants:  “I will be gratified when this tumult subsides.”  The doctor has been added to the membership of the club in order to add social tone to the gathering.  His charm is infinite; his manners are of a delicacy and an aplomb.  His speech, when he is of waggish humour, carries a tincture of Queen Anne phraseology that is subtle and droll.  A man, indeed! L’extreme de charme, as M. Djer-Kiss loves to say what time he woos the public in the theatre programmes.