ery center of all of them was
this same Charley Vanderhuyn, whose face, the boys used to say, was
like the British Empire--for on it the sun never set. His unflagging
spirits, his keen love for society, his quick sympathy with everybody,
his fine appreciation of every man's good points, whatever they might
be, made Charley a prince wherever he went. I said he was the center of
the circle of young men about the Hasheesh Club ten years ago; and so
he was, though, to tell the truth, he was then but about twenty-one
years of age. They had a great time at the club, I remember, when he
came of age and came into possession of his patrimony--a trifle of half
a million, I believe. He gave a dinner, and there was such a time as
the Hasheesh Club never saw before nor since. I fear there was overmuch
wine-drinking, and I am sure there was a fearful amount of punch drunk.
Charley never drank to excess, never lost his self-control for a moment
under any temptation. But there was many another young man, of
different temperament, to whom the rooms of the club were what candles
are to moths. One poor fellow, who always burned his wings, was a
blue-eyed, golden-haired young magazine writer of that day. We all
thought of his ability and promise--his name was John Perdue, but you
will doubtless remember him by his _nom de plume_ of "Baron Bertram."
Poor fellow! he loved Charley passionately, and always drank himself
drunk at the club. He wasted all he had and all he made; his clothes
grew shabby, he borrowed of Charley, who was always open-handed, until
his pride would allow him to borrow no more. He had just married, too,
and he was so ashamed of his own wreck that he completed his ruin by
drinking to forget it.

I am not writing a story with a temperance moral; temperance tales are
always stupid and always useless. The world is brimful of walking
morals on that subject, and if one will not read the lesson of the life
of his next-door neighbor, what use of bringing Lazarus from the dead
to warn him of a perdition that glares at him out of the eyes of so
many men?

I mentioned John Perdue--poor golden-haired "Baron Bertram"--only
because he had something to do with the circumstances which led Charley
Vanderhuyn to use that ambiguous interjection about "the Dickens!"
Perdue, as I said, dropped away from the Hasheesh Club, lost his
employment as literary editor of the Luminary, fell out of good
society, and at last earned barely enough to