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We all know the story of the worn-out, world-tired club-man who said he was looking for a man who was really wise, really experienced, and really deep. At last he felt that he had found him in another club-man very handsome, especially full of forehead and broad between the eyes, perfectly groomed, and silent to the point of stillness.
The novel is for the lighter moment after the deed is done, when he is no longer brunting Fate, but reclining idly, and reflecting humorously or malignly on this life. The epic is closely and strongly framed, like the gladiator about to strike a blow: the novel is relaxed and at careless ease, like the club-man after lighting his pipe.
It was part of the ridiculous irony of life that Derek, with the domestic incompetency natural to a banker and a club-man, should have a daughter to train, while she whose instinct was so passionately maternal must be doomed to spinsterhood.
"Glory be!" exclaimed the dapper little club-man, with a comical furrow of care upon his brow. "When you give up, it is quitting time." "I haven't given up; I am doing all I can, but things are in a diabolical tangle. Some of our supplies are here; others are laid out on the road; some seem to be utterly lost.
"I told you beforehand it was going to be a political confab," said the club-man in self-defense. "And you mustn't treat it lightly, either. Ten prattling words of what you have heard to-night set afloat on the gossip pool of this town might make it pretty difficult for our David." "We are not very likely to babble," retorted Penelope. "We are not so rich in intimates in this aboriginal desert."
Over her shoulder peered the face of a man with pale eyes and yellow moustaches Bert Atkins, cynical and world-weary, whom the papers referred to as a "club-man," and whom Hal's brother had called a "tame cat."
"I suppose you know it's not thought to be the ticket," returned Havens. "I don't care for that; it's good enough for me," cried the man from Glasgow, stoutly. "The only devil of it is, a fellow can never find a secret in a place like the South Seas: only in London and Paris." "M'Gibbon's been reading some dime novel, I suppose," said one club-man.
Fraser threw back his head and gave vent to one of his rare laughs. "Ain't that a rave?" "Here he comes now," Boyd announced, with a glance out the window, and the next instant Alton Clyde entered, a picture of dejection. "Gee! This is fierce, isn't it?" the club-man began, flinging himself into the nearest chair. "They tell me it's all off, finally. What are you going to do?"
If she holds on, there is an even chance for a spasmodic upward reaction before worse things happen." "Perhaps: you know more about the probabilities than I pretend to. But on the other hand, she may lose more if she holds on." Kent bit deep into his cigar. "We must see to it that she doesn't lose, Mr. Ormsby." The club-man laughed broadly.
Every meeting meant a banquet, and at these meetings each club-man wore a gold medal on which was engraved the motto, 'Fortitude in Distress. Dishes were served which smacked of prairie and forest venison, bear flesh, and buffalo tongue. The club's resplendent glass and polished silver were marked with its crest, a beaver.
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