s; the night's young" (it was about half-past twelve), "but I have a
kind of engagement to look in at the Cockpit, and three or four of your
young friends here are anxious to come with me, and see how we keep it
up round there. Perhaps you and your friend will walk with us." Here he
bowed slightly in the direction of Barton.

"There will be a little _bac_ going on," he continued--"_un petit bac
de sante_; and these boys tell me they have never played anything more
elevating than loo."

"I'm afraid I am no good at a round game," answered Maitland, who had
played at his Aunt's at Christmas, and who now observed with delight
that everyone was moving; "but here is Barton, who will be happy to
accompany you, I daresay."

"If you're for a frolic, boys," said Barton, quoting Dr. Johnson, and
looking rather at the younger men than at Cranley, "why, I will not balk
you. Good-night, Maitland."

And he shook hands with his host.

"Good-nights" were uttered in every direction; sticks, hats, and
umbrellas were hunted up; and while Maitland, half-asleep, was being
whirled to his rooms in Bloomsbury in a hansom, his guests made the
frozen pavement of Piccadilly ring beneath their elegant heels.

"It is only round the corner," said Cranley to the four or five men
who accompanied him. "The Cockpit, where I am taking you, is in a
fashionable slum off St. James's. We're just there."

There was nothing either meretricious or sinister in the aspect of that
favored resort, the Cockpit, as the Decade Club was familiarly called
by its friends--and enemies. Two young Merton men and the freshman from
New, who were enjoying their Christmas vacation in town, and had been
dining with Maitland, were a little disappointed in the appearance of
the place. They had hoped to knock mysteriously at a back door in a
lane, and to be shown, after investigating through a loopholed wicket,
into a narrow staircase, which, again, should open on halls of light,
full of blazing wax candles and magnificent lacqueys, while a small
mysterious man would point out the secret hiding-room, and the passages
leading on to the roof or into the next house, in case of a raid by the
police. Such was the old idea of a "Hell;" but the advance of Thought
has altered all these early notions. The Decade Club was like any other
small club. A current of warm air, charged with tobacco-smoke, rushed
forth into the frosty night when the swinging door was opened; a sleepy
porter l