inals, many of them bearing resounding names. In the billiard-room
he introduced me to Augustus John and three other famous men who might
not like it known that they drink beer in public-houses. When the Welsh
Rarebits were announced, we went upstairs to the cosy dining-room and
feasted gorgeously, watching, from the window, the many-coloured life of
Chelsea....

When every scrap of food on our plates was gone, we had another
Guinness, and I went back to his studio, a beautiful room with oak
panelling and electric light, which he rented from a travelling pal for
the ridiculous sum of three shillings a week. It stood next to the
reconstructed Crosby Hall, and looked out on a wide prospect of sloping
roofs, peppered with a sharp light.

He sat down and showed me his day's work. He showed me etchings, oils,
pastels. He told me stories. He showed me caricatures of the famous
people with whom he had _bohemed_. Then, at about ten o'clock, he said
it was rather dull; and what about it? He knew a place, quite near,
where some of the boys were sure to be; what about it?

So we descended the lone staircase, and came out to the windy
embankment, where self-important little tugs were raking the water with
the beams of their headlights. Thence we made many turnings, and
stopped at a house near the Models' Club. At this club, which was formed
only in 1913, the artists may go at any time to secure a model--which is
a distinct boon. The old way was for the model to call on the artist,
the result being that the unfortunate man was pestered with dozens of
girls for whom he had no use, while the one model he really wanted never
appeared. The club combines the advantages of club, employment bureau,
and hotel. There is no smoking-room; every room is a smoking-room, for
there are two things which are essential to the comfort of the
girl-model, and they are cigarettes and sweets. These are their only
indulgences, for, obviously, if you are depending for your livelihood on
your personal figure, self-denial and an abstemious life are compulsory.

If you want to know what is doing in the art world, who is painting
what, and why, then get yourself invited to tea--China tea only. The
gathering is picturesque, for the model has, of course, the knack of the
effective pose, not only professionally but socially. It is a beautiful
club, and it is one more answer to the eternal question Why Girls Don't
Marry. With a Models' Club, the Four Arts Club,