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They are pleased also maybe to sit at the long table with the most Ancient of Living Diplomatists, the most honourably battered of British Generals, the most beautifully silent of London Exquisites, and to find these great figures among the kindest and most genial of the human race.

But the Second Stage is swiftly reached. The world is full of a number of things; there are clubs not far away with cocktail bars and Turkish baths; the company of the Diplomat, the General, and the Exquisite may seem a trifle too monotonous in its regularity; there is but one room, one table, one Edward, one grill, one fireplace, one sofa. They vanish and pass away.

And then with some, but not with all (the Zoffany quietly chooses its own), the Third Stage is reached. Something draws them back. Other clubs may have their gaiety and splendours, their cards and diversions, their Point-to-Point and Golfing Gymkhanas, their guest-rooms and their Ladies' Chambers—there is only one Zoffany. For them there will be to the end of their long London club days no other club from world's end to world's end, no other grill, no other Georgian bowls, no other Edward, no other bow-window, and so, in their turn and in their own good time, they will become the most ancient of Diplomats, Generals, or Exquisites, sinking gently in the tender arms of the Zoffany to their eternal rest.