ated
from each other by narrow paths of broad, red tile bordered by box. All
in all it was a charming little bit of formal gardening; I could
imagine how pretty it would be on a spring morning, when the beds
should be gay with crocuses and tulips.

We were admitted into the club proper by a liveried servant, and from
the handsome oak-panelled vestibule we passed into a lofty apartment
hung with pictures and filled with miscellaneous objects of art. All,
without exception, were execrable--miserable daubs of painting,
criminal essays in plastic and decorative work, and a collection of
statuary that could be adequately matched only by the horrors in
Central Park. "Our art gallery, gentlemen," explained Dr. Magnus.

Art gallery indeed! To me it was the most melancholy of exhibitions,
but Indiman was enraptured.

"What a magnificent record of failure!" he exclaimed. "What miracles of
ineptitude!" and Dr. Magnus smiled, well pleased.

We ascended to the next floor. Here was the library, lined ceiling-high
with books that had fallen still-born from the press. Gigantic cabinet
presses occupied the centre of the room, the final depository of
countless "unavailable" MSS. In an adjoining room were glass-cases
crowded with mechanical models of unsuccessful inventions. Naturally, I
expected to see a large section devoted to the resolution of the
perpetual-motion problem, but in this I was disappointed, not a single
specimen of the kind could I discover.

"We do not attempt the impossible," explained Dr. Magnus, dryly. "Our
failures must be inherent in the man, not in his subject."

There were other rooms, a long succession of them, filled with
melancholy evidences of incapacity and defeat in almost every
department of human activity--plans of abortive military campaigns,
prospectuses of moribund business enterprises, architectural and
engineering drawings of structures never to be reared, charts, models,
unfinished musical scores, finally a huge papier-mache globe on which
were traced the routes of Mr. Colman Hoyt's four unsuccessful dashes
for the North Pole. It depressed me, the sight of this vast
lumber-room, this collection of useless flotsam and jetsam, cast up and
rejected by the sea of strenuous life. Most moving of all, a broken
golf-club standing in a dusty corner, and beside it a wofully scarred
and battered ball. I pointed them out to Indiman.

"A fellow-sufferer," he said, and sighed deeply.

Last of all we wer