m going to run this
club for a profit, and if you continue to be manager you'll jolly well
have to turn over a new leaf."

"My good friend," said my master, rising and thrusting his hands in his
pockets, "you have told me that about ten times; it is getting
monotonous."

"The way this place is run," continued Mr. Pogson, unheeding, "is
scandalous. Not a blessed account kept. No check on provisions or drink.
Every night your servants are drunk."

"As owls," said Paragot.

"And what the dickens do you do?"

"I give the Lotus Club the prestige of my presidency. I accept a salary
and this presidential residence as my remuneration. You do not expect a
man like me to keep ledgers and check butcher's bills like a
twopennyhalfpenny clerk in the City. It is you, my dear Mr. Pogson, who
have curious ideas of club management. You should put this sort of thing
into the hands of some arithmetical hireling. I--" he waved his long
fingers tipped with their long nails, magnificently--"am the
picturesque, the intellectual, the spiritual guide of the club."

"You are a ---- fraud," cried Mr. Pogson, using so dreadful an adjective
that I dropped the gridiron. Paragot had trained me to a distaste of
foul language. "You are a drunken incompetent thief."

Paragot took his guest's glossy silk hat and gold mounted cane from the
table and put them into his hands. He pointed to the door.

"Get out--quickly," said he.

He turned on his heel and sitting on the bed began to play the fiddle.
Mr. Pogson instead of getting out stood in front of him quivering like
an infuriated jelly, and informed him that it was his blooming club and
his blooming room, that he would choose the moment of exit most
convenient to his own blooming self; also that Paragot's speedy exit was
a matter for his decision. In a dancing fury he heaped abuse on Paragot
who played "The Last Rose of Summer," with rather more tremolo than
usual. Even I saw that he was dangerous. Mr. Pogson did not heed.
Suddenly Paragot sprang to his feet towering over the fat man and swung
his fiddle on high like Thor's hammer. With a splitting crash it came
down on Mr. Pogson's head. Then Paragot gripped him and running with him
to the door, shot him down the stairs.

"That, my little Asticot," said he, "is the present proprietor of the
Lotus Club, and this is the late manager."

I ran to the door for the purpose of locking it. Paragot smiled.

"He will not come back. When he has mend