t make me a member at once. But who's president?"

"President? Who _is_ president, McAllister? I really forget. You see,
whenever the president is caught speaking too candidly of any of our
clients' characters, we pass a vote of censure, and depose him, and
he has to stand drinks. The competition isn't so keen as it used to
be. If you would like to stand--for the office, I mean--I dare say
there will be an opening soon.... Well, I must be off: I'm afraid
of Mrs. Grumbit, and--yes, by Jove!--I've forgotten my latchkey
again! Of course you're not coming yet, Dick? Come and breakfast
with me to-morrow. Good-night, you fellows!"

"Copal has been in great form to-night," said Lightmark, after the
door had closed on him, getting up and stretching himself. "What
does it mean? Joy at my return? Fatted calf?"

"No doubt, my boy, no doubt," growled McAllister humorously, on his
way to the door. "But you must bear in mind, too, the circumstance
that the laddie's just sold a picture."

"Good business!" ejaculated Lightmark, as he reflected to himself
that perhaps that despaired-of fiver would be repaid after all.

About midnight most of the men left. Rainham remained, and
Lightmark, who professed himself too lazy to move. Rainham lapsed
into his familiar state of half-abstraction, while his friend
cross-examined a young sculptor fresh from Rome.

At the next table Oswyn was holding forth, with eager gesticulations
and the excitement of the hour in his eyes, on the subject of a
picture which he contemplated painting in oils for exhibition at the
Salon next year. Rainham had heard it all before; still, he listened
with a keen appreciation of the wonderful touch with which the
little, dishevelled artist enlarged on the capabilities of his
choice, the possibilities of colour and treatment. The picture was
to be painted at the dock, and the painter had already achieved a
daringly suggestive impression in pastels of the familiar night-scene
which he now described: the streaming, vivid torches, their rays
struggling and drowning in the murky water, glimmering faintly
in the windows of the black warehouse barely suggested at the side;
the alert, swarming sailors, busy with ropes and tackle; and in the
middle the dark, steep leviathan, fresh from the sea-storms,
growing, as it were, out of the impenetrable chaos of the foggy
background, in which the river-lights gleamed like opals set in dull
ebony.

When the tide of inspiration fa