easons, and a lot of em come because they've nowhere else to go, poor
beggars"; and, glancing from the man with the "game leg" to Stroud, it
occurred to Shelton that even he, old Stroud, might be one of these poor
beggars. One never knew! A look at Benjy, contained and cheery, restored
him. Ah, the lucky devil! He would not have to come here any more! and
the thought of the last evening he himself would be spending before long
flooded his mind with a sweetness that was almost pain.

"Benjy, I'll play you a hundred up!" said young Bill Dennant.

Stroud and the racing man went to watch the game; Shelton was left once
more to reverie.

"Good form!" thought he; "that fellow must be made of steel. They'll
go on somewhere; stick about half the night playing poker, or some such
foolery."

He crossed over to the window. Rain had begun to fall; the streets
looked wild and draughty. The cabmen were putting on their coats. Two
women scurried by, huddled under one umbrella, and a thin-clothed,
dogged-looking scarecrow lounged past with a surly, desperate
step. Shelton, returning to his chair, threaded his way amongst his
fellow-members. A procession of old school and college friends came up
before his eyes. After all, what had there been in his own education, or
theirs, to give them any other standard than this "good form"? What
had there been to teach them anything of life? Their imbecility was
incredible when you came to think of it. They had all the air of knowing
everything, and really they knew nothing--nothing of Nature, Art, or
the Emotions; nothing of the bonds that bind all men together. Why, even
such words were not "good form"; nothing outside their little circle was
"good form." They had a fixed point of view over life because they came
of certain schools, and colleges, and regiments! And they were those in
charge of the state, of laws, and science, of the army, and religion.
Well, it was their system--the system not to start too young, to form
healthy fibre, and let the after-life develop it!

"Successful!" he thought, nearly stumbling over a pair of patent-leather
boots belonging to a moon-faced, genial-looking member with gold
nose-nippers; "oh, it 's successful!"

Somebody came and picked up from the table the very volume which had
originally inspired this train of thought, and Shelton could see his
solemn pleasure as he read. In the white of his eye there was a torpid
and composed abstraction. There was nothi