the
club, and robbed every member of the club who had ventured to have
personal dealings with him. Although a bad feeling in regard to him
was no doubt engendered in the minds of those who had suffered deeply,
it was not that alone which cast an almost funereal gloom over the
club. The sorrow was in this,--that with Herr Vossner all their
comforts had gone. Of course Herr Vossner had been a thief. That no
doubt had been known to them from the beginning. A man does not consent
to be called out of bed at all hours in the morning to arrange the
gambling accounts of young gentlemen without being a thief. No one
concerned with Herr Vossner had supposed him to be an honest man. But
then as a thief he had been so comfortable that his absence was
regretted with a tenderness almost amounting to love even by those who
had suffered most severely from his rapacity. Dolly Longestaffe had
been robbed more outrageously than any other member of the club, and
yet Dolly Longestaffe had said since the departure of the purveyor that
London was not worth living in now that Herr Vossner was gone. In a
week the Beargarden collapsed,--as Germany would collapse for a period
if Herr Vossner's great compatriot were suddenly to remove himself from
the scene; but as Germany would strive to live even without Bismarck,
so did the club make its new efforts. But here the parallel must cease.
Germany no doubt would at last succeed, but the Beargarden had
received a blow from which it seemed that there was no recovery. At
first it was proposed that three men should be appointed as trustees,--
trustees for paying Vossner's debts, trustees for borrowing more
money, trustees for the satisfaction of the landlord who was beginning
to be anxious as to his future rent. At a certain very triumphant
general meeting of the club it was determined that such a plan should
be arranged, and the members assembled were unanimous. It was at first
thought that there might be a little jealousy as to the trusteeship.
The club was so popular and the authority conveyed by the position
would be so great, that A, B, and C might feel aggrieved at seeing so
much power conferred on D, E, and F. When at the meeting above
mentioned one or two names were suggested, the final choice was
postponed, as a matter of detail to be arranged privately, rather from
this consideration than with any idea that there might be a difficulty
in finding adequate persons. But even the leading members of