y down its length the passage grew wider. Here the rooms were on
both sides and were much larger than those in front.

It was this part of the Imperial that was most frequented, and that had
made its reputation. In the smaller rooms in front one had beer and
Welsh rabbits; in the larger rooms, champagne and terrapin.

Vandover, Haight, and Geary came in through the ladies' entrance of the
Imperial at about eleven o'clock, going slowly down the passage, looking
into each of the little rooms, searching for one that was empty. All at
once Vandover, who was in the lead, cried out:

"Well, if here isn't that man Ellis, drinking whisky by himself. Bah! a
man that will drink whisky all _alone_! Glad to see you just the same,
Bandy; move along, will you--give a man some room."

"Hello, hello, Bandy!" cried Geary and young Haight, hitting him in the
back, while Geary added: "How long have you been down here? _I've_ just
come from making a call with the boys. Had a fine time; what are you
drinking, whisky? _I'm_ going to have something to eat. Didn't have much
of a lunch to-day, but you ought to have seen the steak I had at the
Grillroom--as thick as that, and tender! Oh, it went great! Here, hang
my coat up there on that side, will you?"

Bancroft Ellis was one of the young men of the city with whom the three
fellows had become acquainted just after their return from college. For
the most part, they met him at downtown restaurants, in the foyers and
vestibules of the theatres, on Kearney Street of a Saturday afternoon,
or, as now, in the little rooms of the Imperial, where he was a
recognized habitue and where he invariably called for whisky, finishing
from three to five "ponies" at every sitting. On very rare occasions
they saw him in society, at the houses where their "set" was received.
At these functions Ellis could never be persuaded to remain in the
parlours; he slipped up to the gentlemen's dressing-rooms at the
earliest opportunity, and spent the evening silently smoking the cigars
and cigarettes furnished by the host. When Vandover and his friends came
up between dances, to brush their hair or to rearrange their neckties,
they found him enveloped in a blue haze of smoke, his feet on a chair,
his shirt bosom broken, and his waistcoat unbuttoned. He would tell them
that he was bored and thirsty and ask how much longer they were going to
stay. He knew but few of their friends; his home was in a little town in
the inter