nder Club" on their
tenth anniversary? One of the members rose from his seat and opened the
door ajar, still holding the handle in his hand.

"Who is it? What do you want at this hour?" he asked.

"I beg pardon, gentlemen," said the voice of the honest landlord
without, "for disturbing the company; but a gentleman has just brought a
letter for the chairman, and I thought it _might_ be important.
Leastways, I thought it wouldn't be much harm to deliver it at once.
The gentleman has sent in his card. Excuse the interruption, sirs; I
hope no offence."

The letter was delivered to Mr. Oldstone. He glanced at the card.

"What, a visitor!" he said; "and at this time of night. Let me tell you,
landlord--ahem--that this is a most unwarrantable infringement
of--er--er--of the rules laid down by--er--eh? Stay, what have we here?
Excuse me, gentlemen, while I break the seal. Ha! from my old friend
Rustcoin. You remember him, gentlemen--my brother antiquary, formerly a
member of our club. He writes from Rome:

"'MY DEAR FRIEND,--I dare say you are surprised to hear from me again,
after my long silence. The fact is that I had put off writing to you,
having some time ago formed a resolution of returning to England, when I
hoped to surprise you by suddenly appearing unexpectedly in time for the
tenth anniversary of the inauguration of our club. Certain affairs,
however, have prevented me from being present myself in the flesh, but I
beg to introduce to your notice my young friend, Mr. Vandyke McGuilp, an
artist who has for some time past been prosecuting his studies here in
Rome. He is a young man of talent and genius, possessing a great fund of
stories of the marvellous and supernatural order, such as your club
particularly prides itself on. He is quite one of our sort, and you
would be doing me a great favour to introduce him to the rest of the
members. If he could arrive in time for your grand saturnalia, I should
be doubly pleased.--Your old friend,

"'CHARLES RUSTCOIN.'"

"Well, gentlemen," said the president, "what do you say to that? Shall
the neophyte be admitted? You see, he is not a commercial traveller, nor
a business man, but an artist; one of those restless strivers after the
ideal. A traveller, too--a man full of stories, like one of us. What do
you say--shall he be admitted?"

The guests gave an unanimous consent, and the next moment our host
ushered the stranger