f
the _Illustrated Universe_ wondered what had become of his bright young
war-artist since the one brief visit to the office.

At two o'clock on a drizzling, foggy morning a policeman, walking up
the Charing Cross Road, paused for a moment to listen to some remote
strains of music that came indistinctly from a distance; then he
shrugged his shoulders and went on--it was no business of his. The
sounds that attracted the policeman's attention had their source in a
cross street to the left--in one of those evil institutions known as a
"night club," which it seems impossible to eradicate from the fast life
of West End London.

It was a typical scene; there were many like it that night. The house
had two street doors, and behind the inner one, which was fitted with a
small grating and kept locked, squatted a vigilant keeper, equally ready
to open to a member or deny admittance to any one who had no business
there. On the first floor, up the dingy stairs, were two apartments. The
outer and smaller room had a bar at one side, presided over by a bright,
golden-haired young lady in _very_ conspicuous evening dress, whose
powers of _repartee_ afforded much amusement to her customers. These
were, many of them, in more or less advanced stages of intoxication, and
they comprised sporting men, persons from various unfashionable walks of
life, clerks who wanted to soar like eagles, and a few swell young men
who had dropped in to be amused. A sprinkling of women must be added.

Both apartments were hung with engravings and French prints and
decorated with tawdry curtains, and in the larger of the two dancing was
going on. Here the crowd was denser and of the same heterogeneous kind.
It was a festival of high jinks--a sway of riotous, unbridled merriment.
A performer at the piano, with a bottle of beer within easy reach,
rapped out the inspiriting chords of a popular melody. Couples glided
over the polished floor, some lightly, some galloping, and all reckless
of colliding with the onlookers. There was a touch of the _risque_ in
the dancing, suggesting the Moulin Rouge of a Casino de Paris carnival.
Occasionally, during a lull, songs were sung by music-hall _artistes_ of
past celebrity, who were now glad of the chance to earn a few shillings
before an uncritical audience. The atmosphere was charged with the scent
of rouge and powder, brandy and stale sherry. Coarse jest and laughter,
ringing on the night, mocked at go-to-bed London.