in various attitudes
reading the daily papers or gazing out of the window.

Some of them who did not direct companies, grow fruit, or own yachts,
wrote a book, or took an interest in a theatre. The greater part eked
out existence by racing horses, hunting foxes, and shooting birds.
Individuals among them, however, had been known to play the piano, and
take up the Roman Catholic religion. Many explored the same spots of the
Continent year after year at stated seasons. Some belonged to the
Yeomanry; others called themselves barristers; once in a way one painted
a picture or devoted himself to good works. They were, in fact, of all
sorts and temperaments, but their common characteristic was an
independent income, often so settled by Providence that they could not in
any way get rid of it.

But though the principle of no occupation overruled all class
distinctions, the Stoics were mainly derived from the landed gentry. An
instinct that the spirit of the club was safest with persons of this
class guided them in their elections, and eldest sons, who became members
almost as a matter of course, lost no time in putting up their younger
brothers, thereby keeping the wine as pure as might be, and preserving
that fine old country-house flavour which is nowhere so appreciated as in
London.

After seeing Gregory pass on the top of a bus, George Pendyce went into
the card-room, and as it was still empty, set to contemplation of the
pictures on the walls. They were effigies of all those members of the
Stoics' Club who from time to time had come under the notice of a
celebrated caricaturist in a celebrated society paper. Whenever a Stoic
appeared, he was at once cut out, framed, glassed, and hung alongside his
fellows in this room. And George moved from one to another till he came
to the last. It was himself. He was represented in very perfectly cut
clothes, with slightly crooked elbows, and race-glasses slung across him.
His head, disproportionately large, was surmounted by a black billycock
hat with a very flat brim. The artist had thought long and carefully
over the face. The lips and cheeks and chin were moulded so as to convey
a feeling of the unimaginative joy of life, but to their shape and
complexion was imparted a suggestion of obstinacy and choler. To the
eyes was given a glazed look, and between them set a little line, as
though their owner were thinking:

'Hard work, hard work! Noblesse oblige. I must keep i