It was so with the founder of the Stoics’ Club.

He came to the surface in the year 187-, with nothing in the world but his clothes and an idea.  In a single year he had floated the Stoics’ Club, made ten thousand pounds, lost more, and gone down again.

The Stoics’ Club lived after him by reason of the immortal beauty of his idea.  In 1891 it was a strong and corporate body, not perhaps quite so exclusive as it had been, but, on the whole, as smart and aristocratic as any club in London, with the exception of that one or two into which nobody ever got.  The idea with which its founder had underpinned the edifice was, like all great ideas, simple, permanent, and perfect—­so simple, permanent, and perfect that it seemed amazing no one had ever thought of it before.  It was embodied in No. 1 of the members’ rules: 

“No member of this club shall have any occupation whatsoever.”

Hence the name of a club renowned throughout London for the excellence of its wines and cuisine.

Its situation was in Piccadilly, fronting the Green Park, and through the many windows of its ground-floor smoking-room the public were privileged to see at all hours of the day numbers of Stoics in various attitudes reading the daily papers or gazing out of the window.

Some of them who did not direct companies, grow fruit, or own yachts, wrote a book, or took an interest in a theatre.  The greater part eked out existence by racing horses, hunting foxes, and shooting birds.  Individuals among them, however, had been known to play the piano, and take up the Roman Catholic religion.  Many explored the same spots of the Continent year after year at stated seasons.  Some belonged to the Yeomanry; others called themselves barristers; once in a way one painted a picture or devoted himself to good works.  They were, in fact, of all sorts and temperaments, but their common characteristic was an independent income, often so settled by Providence that they could not in any way get rid of it.

But though the principle of no occupation overruled all class distinctions, the Stoics were mainly derived from the landed gentry.  An instinct that the spirit of the club was safest with persons of this class guided them in their elections, and eldest sons, who became members almost as a matter of course, lost no time in putting up their younger brothers, thereby keeping the wine as pure as might be, and preserving that fine old country-house flavour which is nowhere so appreciated as in London.

After seeing Gregory pass on the top of a bus, George Pendyce went into the card-room, and as it was still empty, set to contemplation of the pictures on the walls.  They were effigies of all those members of the Stoics’ Club who from time to time had come under the notice of a celebrated caricaturist in a celebrated society paper.  Whenever a Stoic appeared, he was at once cut out, framed, glassed, and hung alongside his fellows in this room.