RM.

[Illustration]

"By desire," I rehearsed my first lecture, "Art and Artists," at the
Savage Club, previous to my giving it in public. In those days the
Savages smoked their pipe of peace in a long room in the Savoy,
overlooking the graveyard where so many of their tribe lay at rest. I
recollect the reading-room at the back looked on to a huge building with
mournful black lettering on it, announcing the fact that it was the
office of some Necropolis. Truly a doleful surrounding for the club
whose members are engaged in promoting the gaiety of nations! The long
room was divided into two, the longer portion being the dining-room, and
the smaller one the card-room, and on Saturday evenings, when they all
sat round smoking their calumets, and singing their songs, and dancing
their war-dances, the room was tried to its utmost capacity, and as on
the occasion to which I am referring the tribe paid me the compliment of
assembling in its numbers, the whole room was required. It was late in
the evening when I arrived, and I found the lanternist in a state of
agitation because the partition was not down, and he was, therefore,
unable to put up the screen, as the card-players vigorously protested
against any disturbance.

Now it has always struck me, perhaps more forcibly on this occasion than
on any other, that the most selfish men on the face of the earth are to
be found in the card-rooms of clubs. The time was close at hand for me
to make my maiden effort in public lecturing, and I was not going to be
baffled by a handful of card-players; so, backed by the authority of the
secretary, I ordered them in Cromwellian tones to "Take away that
partition!" The players were all but invisible, surrounded as they were
by volumes of smoke, out of which there issued incalculable quantities
of great big D's intermixed with the fumes of poisonous nicotine. Down
went the partition, up went the screen, on went the game. I firmly
believe they would not have looked up had Cavendish come to deliver a
discourse from the platform on whist. I was quite prepared to proceed
without disturbing their game, but a difficulty arose--there was no
platform, and I required their tables for the purpose. The grumbling
gamblers had to submit at last, and cards in hand they betook themselves
to another room, so I was able to mount my first platform--a collection
of tables. Now I don't know how it is, but it is a fact that there is
nothing more unnerving th