result, of inner dissolution. Through the door of the hoarding the two
pillars of the front door told a sorry tale. Pasted on either of them
was a dingy bill, bearing the sinister imprimatur of an auctioneer, and
offering (in capitals of various sizes) Bedroom Suites (Walnut and
Mahogany), Turkey, Indian and Wilton Pile Carpets, Two Full-sized
Billiard-Tables, a Remington Type-writer, a Double Door (Fire-Proof),
and other objects not less useful and delightful. The club, then, had
gone to smash. The members had been disbanded, driven out of this Eden
by the fiery sword of the Law, driven back to their homes. Sighing over
the marcescibility of human happiness, I peered between the pillars
into the excavated and chaotic hall. The porter's hatch was still
there, in the wall. There it was, wondering why no inquiries were made
through it now, or, may be, why it had not been sold into bondage with
the double-door and the rest of the fixtures. A melancholy relic of
past glories! I crossed over to the other side of the road, and passed
my eye over the whole ruin. The roof, the ceilings, most of the inner
walls, had already fallen. Little remained but the grim, familiar
facade--a thin husk. I noted (that which I had never noted before) two
iron grills in the masonry. Miserable travesties of usefulness,
ventilating the open air! Through the gaping windows, against the wall
of the next building, I saw in mid-air the greenish Lincrusta Walton of
what I guessed to have been the billiard-room--the billiard-room that
had boasted two full-sized tables. Above it ran a frieze of white and
gold. It was interspersed with flat Corinthian columns. The gilding of
the capitals was very fresh, and glittered gaily under the summer
sunbeams.

And hardly a day of the next autumn and winter passed but I was drawn
back to the ruin by a kind of lugubrious magnetism. The strangest thing
was that the ruin seemed to remain in practically the same state as
when first I had come upon it: the facade still stood high. This might
have been due to the proverbial laziness of British workmen, but I did
not think it could be. The workmen were always plying their pick-axes,
with apparent gusto and assiduity, along the top of the building;
bricks and plaster were always crashing down into the depths and
sending up clouds of dust. I preferred to think the building renewed
itself, by some magical process, every night. I preferred to think it
was prepared thus to res