before destiny administers that final
and condign chastisement that we ripely merit, let us sit here in
the corner of the India House and be of good cheer. And at this
point, matters being so, and a second order of butter being already
necessary, the waiter arrived with the Spanish omelet.

Homeward by the way of South Street, admiring the slender concave
bows of fine ships--the _Mexico_ and the _Santa Marta_, for
instance--and privily wondering what were our chances of smelling
blue water within the next quinquennium, we passed in mild and
placid abandonment. On Burling Slip, just where in former times
there used to hang a sign KIPLING BREW (which always interested us),
we saw a great, ragged, burly rogue sitting on a doorstep. He had
the beard of a buccaneer, the placid face of one at ease with
fortune. He hitched up his shirt and shifted from one ham to another
with supreme and sunkissed contentment. And Endymion, who sees all
things as the beginnings of heavenly poems, said merrily: "As I was
walking on Burling Slip, I saw a seaman without a ship."

[Illustration]

SECRET TRANSACTIONS OF THE THREE HOURS FOR LUNCH CLUB

The doctor having been elected a member of the club, a meeting was
held to celebrate the event. Bowling Green, Esq., secretary, was
instructed to prepare carefully confidential minutes. Weather: fair
and tepid. Wind: N.N.E. Course laid: From starting line at a Church
Street bookshop, where the doctor bought a copy of "Limbo," by
Aldous Huxley, to Pier 56, N.R. Course made good: the same.

The doctor was in excellent form. On the Fourteenth Street car a
human being was arguing fiercely and loudly with the conductor about
some controversial matter touching upon fares and destinations. The
clamour was great. Said the doctor, adjusting his eye-glass and
gazing with rebuke toward the disputants: "I will be gratified when
this tumult subsides." The doctor has been added to the membership
of the club in order to add social tone to the gathering. His charm
is infinite; his manners are of a delicacy and an aplomb. His
speech, when he is of waggish humour, carries a tincture of Queen
Anne phraseology that is subtle and droll. A man, indeed! _L'extreme
de charme_, as M. Djer-Kiss loves to say what time he woos the
public in the theatre programmes.

The first thrill was when Bowling Green, Esq., secretary, cast an
eye upward as the club descended from the Fourteenth Street
sharabang, and saw