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Because I was eating alone I finished before Howard, and went up to pay my bill at the desk. I said to the cashier, "That waiter over there--what's his name?"

"Jackson, sir?"

"That's right. How long has he been here?"

"Oh, he's been here a long time. All his life, you might say. Eighteen ninety-five or ninety-six he come here, I believe."

"That's a very long time."

The man smiled as he gave me my change. "It is, sir. But Porson--he's been here longer than that."

I went upstairs to the smoking room and stopped before a table littered with periodicals. With idle interest I turned over a printed list of members. Howard, I saw, had joined the club in 1896. Master and man, then, had been rubbing shoulders all their lives.

I took a couple of illustrated weeklies, and ordered coffee. Then I crossed the room to where the two most comfortable chairs in my club stand side by side, and prepared to spend an hour of idleness before returning to my flat. In a few minutes there was a step beside me and Howard lowered his long body in to the other chair. A boy, unasked, brought him coffee and brandy.