s,--the
young lawyer,--Jack Manners. But what was he doing there? While the
Editor was still gazing after him, he suddenly disappeared, as if some
one had warned him that he was observed. As he did not reappear, when
Tournelli entered from the kitchen a few moments later, the Editor
called him and asked for his fellow-member. To his surprise the Italian
answered, with every appearance of truthfulness, that he had not seen
Mr. Manners at all! The Editor was staggered; but as he chanced, some
hours later, to meet Manners, he playfully rallied him on his mysterious
conference with the Italian. Manners replied briefly that he had had no
interview whatever with Tournelli, and changed the subject quickly. The
mystery--as we persisted in believing it--was heightened when another
member deposed that he had seen "Tom," the Western waiter, coming from
Manners's office. As Manners had volunteered no information of this, we
felt that we could not without indelicacy ask him if Tom was a client,
or a messenger from Tournelli. The only result was that our Club dinner
was even more constrained than before. Not only was "Tom" now invested
with a dark importance, but it was evident that the harmony of the Club
was destroyed by these singular secret relations of two of its members
with their employes.

It chanced that one morning, arriving from a delayed journey, I dropped
into the restaurant. It was that slack hour between the lingering
breakfast and coming luncheon when the tables are partly stripped and
unknown doors, opened for ventilation, reveal the distant kitchen, and a
mingled flavor of cold coffee-grounds and lukewarm soups hangs heavy
on the air. To this cheerlessness was added a gusty rain without, that
filmed the panes of the windows and doors, and veiled from the passer-by
the usual tempting display of snowy cloths and china.

As I seemed to be the only customer at that hour, I selected a table by
the window for distraction. Tom had taken my order; the other waiters,
including Tournelli, were absent, with the exception of a solitary
German, who, in the interlude of perfunctory trifling with the casters,
gazed at me with that abstracted irresponsibility which one waiter
assumes towards another's customer. Even the proprietor had deserted his
desk at the counter. It seemed to be a favorable opportunity to get some
information from Tom.

But he anticipated me. When he had dealt a certain number of dishes
around me, as if the