The occupant of this bath-chair was not only one of the characters of the club but one of the characters of the town. He was a squat, broken-kneed old darky, with white eyebrows arching over big brass spectacles, a flat nose, and two keen, restless monkey eyes. His hands, like those of many negroes of his age, were long and shrivelled, the palms wrinkled as the inside, of a turkey's foot and of the same color and texture. His two feet, always in evidence, rested on their heels, and were generally encased in carpet slippers--shoes being out of the question owing to his life-long habit of storing inside his own person the drainings of the decanters, an idiosyncrasy which produced a form of gout that only carpet slippers could alleviate. In his earlier life he had carried General Washington around in his arms, had waited on Henry Clay, and had been body-servant to Lafayette, besides holding the horses of half the generals of the War of 1812--at, least, he said so, and no man of his color dared contradict him.
The years of service of this guardian of the front door dated back to the time when the Chippendale furniture of Colonel Ralph Coston, together with many of the portraits covering the walls, and the silver chafing-dishes lining the sideboard, had come into the possession of the club through that gentleman's last will and testament. Coston was the most beloved of all the epicures of his time, and his famous terrapin-stew--one of the marvellous, delicacies of the period --had been cooked in these same chafing-dishes. The mahogany-colored Cerberus had been Coston's slave as well as butler, and still belonged to the estate. It was eminently proper, therefore, that he should still maintain his position at the club as long as his feet held out.
While he was gone in search of the Colonel, Oliver occupied himself for a moment in examining one of the old English sporting prints that ornamented the side-walls of the bare, uncarpeted, dismal hall. It was the second time that he had entered these sacred doors --few men of his own age had ever done as much.
He had stopped there once before in search of his father, when his mother had been taken suddenly ill. He recalled again the curious spiral staircase at the end of the hall where his father had met him and which had impressed him so at the time. He could see, too, the open closet out of which Mr. Horn had taken his overcoat, and which was now half-filled with hats and coats.
From the desolate, uninviting hall, Oliver passed into the large meeting-room of the club fronting the street, now filled with members, many of whom had dropped in for half an hour on their way back to their offices. Of these some of the older and more sedate men, like Judge Bowman and Mr. Pancoast, were playing chess; others were seated about the small tables, reading, sipping toddies, or chatting together. A few of the younger bloods, men of forty or thereabouts, were standing by the uncurtained windows watching the belles of the town in their flounced dresses and wide leghorn hats, out for an afternoon visit or promenade. Among these men Oliver recognized Howard Thom, son of the Chief-Justice, poor as a church mouse and fifty years of age if a day. Oliver was not surprised to find Thom craning his neck at the window. He remembered the story they told of this perennial beau--of how he had been in love with every woman in and around Kennedy Square, from Miss Clendenning down to the latest debutante, and of how he would tell you over his first toddy that he had sown his wild oats and was about to settle down for life, and over his last--the sixth, or seventh, or eighth--that the most adorable woman in town, after a life devoted to her service, had thrown him over, and that henceforth all that was left to him was a load of buckshot and six feet of earth.
Oliver bowed to those of the members he knew, and wheeling one of the clumsy mahogany chairs into position, sat down to await the arrival of Colonel Clayton.
Meanwhile his eyes wandered over the desolate room with its leather-covered chairs and sofas and big marble mantel bare of every ornament but another moon-faced clock--a duplicate of the one at the bank--and two bronze candelabra flanking each end, and then on the portraits of the dead and gone members which relieved the sombre walls--one in a plum-colored coat with hair tied in a queue being no other than his own ancestor. He wondered to himself where lay the charm and power to attract in a place so colorless, and he thought, as was his habit with all interiors, how different he would want it to be if he ever became a member. His fresh young nature revolted at the dinginess and bareness of the surroundings. He couldn't understand why the men came here and what could be the fascination of sitting round these cold tables talking by the hour when there was so much happiness outside--so much of light and air and sunshine free to everybody.
He was, moreover, a little constrained and uncomfortable.
There was none of the welcome of Mr. Crocker's studio about this place, nor any of the comforting companionship of the jolly old cashier, who made the minutes fly as if they had wings; and that, too, in a musty bank far more uninviting even than the club. He remembered his mother's message now--and he remembered her face and the anxious expression--as we always remember duties when we are uncomfortable. He meant to hurry home to her as soon as the Colonel dismissed him, and tell her how it had all happened, and how sorry he was, and what a stupid he had been, and she would forgive him as she had a hundred times before.
As he sat absorbed in these thoughts his attention was attracted by a conversation at the adjoining table between that dare-devil cross-country rider, Tom Gunning of Calvert County, old General McTavish of the Mexican War, and Billy Talbot the exquisite.
Gunning was in his corduroys and hunting-boots.
