en the habitual acceptors who
can always be depended upon in a club to give their society in return
for a good dinner had all been engaged.

As I entered the dining-room, I saw my usual table reserved for me and
my customary waiter on the outlook.

"You dine alone, sir, to-night?" he asked, as I took my seat, and then
having suggested the outline of a light dinner, went off to give the
order and bring my usual substitute for a companion, a magazine.
To-night, however, I was not in the humor to read, but rather inclined
to thoughts of the men brought to mind by White's invitation.

They were all intimate friends, and it is as well I should tell
something about them here as another time, for they are destined to play
more or less conspicuous parts in the miserable affair which is the
occasion of this book.

To begin with my host--Arthur White was an attractive, lovable fellow
when in his brighter moods, but weak and variable. A man of good
impulses, I think, but so fond of luxury and idleness that he was often
selfish in his self-indulgence; of that sort of men that other men feel
something akin to affection for, such as for a younger brother or a
woman, so easily led and dependent do they seem. He was still young,
not yet out of his twenties, and, living in extravagant idleness and
dissipation, was spending pretty rapidly a bequest of a hundred thousand
dollars he had inherited, about two years before, from an uncle.

The bequest had created some little comment at the time, because thereby
the only son of the testator, who was named in the will as residuary
legatee, was reported to have inherited little or nothing.

However, the son had always been a "bad lot" and neglected the old man,
whereas Arthur had lived with him, and, after his lazy fashion, cared
for and helped him in his affairs. So the busy world shrugged its
shoulders and passed the episode by, and only prosy moralists dwelt upon
it to point the Fifth Commandment.

How Arthur reconciled it with his conscience to keep all the money, I
never heard him say, but any sacrifice, I fancy, would have seemed hard
to one so self-indulgent. In any event, whatever may have been the right
or wrong of it, he was making the most of his fortune while it lasted,
and his friends were incidentally getting some benefit therefrom too, as
our invitation for the evening testified.

While White was the youngest of the quartette I was to join, Gilbert
Littell was the oldest-