know
the titillating effects of champagne; and there are those where the
management serves no other form of febrifuge. Club members naturally
need no introduction to one another, with the result that such
formalities are here entirely dispensed with. In the better grade Supper
Clubs the ladies are not admitted unless in evening dress, while at
other establishments even such sartorial formalities are not insisted
upon. The object of a Supper Club is to furnish relaxation to the tired
business man, profits to the management, usufructs to the police and
incomes to the lady patrons. The principal activities of a Supper Club
are (1) drinking; (2) dancing; (3) wooing.

There you have it. In the Astor Club (or is it the Palm Club? Or has
the name been changed since spring?) one finds the higher type of
nocturnal rounder. Evening clothes are obligatory for all. Champagne and
expensive wines constitute the only beverages served. The orchestra is
composed of very creditable musicians; and the lady patrons, chosen by
the management by standards of pulchritude rather than of social
standing, are attestations to the good taste of the corpulent and
amiable Signor Bolis, owner and director. The men whose money pours into
the Signor's coffers are obviously drawn from the better class of
English society--clean-cut, clean-shaven youths; slick and pompous army
officers; prosperous-looking middle-aged men who, even at a supper club,
drop but little of their genteel dignity. On my numerous visits to this
club I failed to find one member who did not have about him in a marked
degree an atmosphere of deportmental distinction. Even during those
final mellow hours, when the dawn was sifting through the cracks of the
window above the stairs, there was little or none of that loud-mouthed
boisterousness which follows on the heels of alcoholic imbibitions in
America. Surfacely the Astor Club is an orderly and decorous
institution, and so fastidious were the casual "good evenings" between
the men and women that only the initiated would have guessed that ere
that meeting they had been strangers. Even under the protection of
membership and the police, the Englishman does not know how to laugh. He
is decorous and stilted during the basest of intriguing.

I had become a member of the Astor Club after as much red tape,
investigation and scrutiny as would have been exerted by a board of the
most exclusive social club. I had signed my full name, my addres