"Don't imagine I make a practice of tooling tandems down to my club,"

said Sullivan. "I don't. I brought the thing along to-day because I've

sold it complete to Lottie Cass. You know her, of course?"

"I don't."

"Well, anyhow," he went on after this check, "I've sold her the entire

bag of tricks. What do you think I'm going to buy?"

"What?"

"A motor-car, old man!"

In those days the person who bought a motor-car was deemed a fearless

adventurer of romantic tendencies. And Sullivan so deemed himself. The

very word "motor-car" then had a strange and thrilling romantic sound

with it.

"The deuce you are!" I exclaimed.

"I am," said he, happy in having impressed me. He took my arm as though

we had been intimate for a thousand years, and led me fearlessly past

the swelling menials within the gate to the club smoking-room, and put

me into a grandfather's chair of pale heliotrope plush in front of an

onyx table, and put himself into another grandfather's chair of

heliotrope plush. And in the cushioned quietude of the smoking-room,

where light-shod acolytes served gin-and-angostura as if serving

gin-and-angostura had been a religious rite, Sullivan went through an

extraordinary process of unchaining himself. His form seemed to be

crossed and re-crossed with chains--gold chains. At the end of one gold

chain was a gold cigarette-case, from which he produced gold-tipped

cigarettes. At the end of another was a gold matchbox. At the end of

another, which he may or may not have drawn out by mistake, were all

sorts of things--knives, keys, mirrors, and pencils. A singular

ceremony! But I was now in the world of gold.

And then smoke ascended from the gold-tipped cigarettes as incense from

censers, and Sullivan lifted his tinted glass of gin-and-angostura, and

I, perceiving that such actions were expected of one in a theatrical

club, responsively lifted mine, and the glasses collided, and Sullivan

said: "Here's to the end of the great family quarrel."

"I'm with you," said I.

And we sipped.

My father had quarrelled with his mother in an epoch when even musical

comedies were unknown, and the quarrel had spread, as family quarrels

do, like a fire or the measles. The punching of my head by Sullivan in

the extinct past had been one of its earliest consequences.

"May the earth lie lightly on them!" said Sullivan.

He was referring to the originators of the altercation. The tone in

which he uttered this wish pleased me--it was so gentle. It hinted

that there was more in Sullivan than met the eye, though a great deal

met the eye. I liked him. He awed me, and he also seemed to me

somewhat ridiculous in his excessive pomp. But I liked him.

The next instant we were talking about Sullivan Smith. How he

contrived to switch the conversation suddenly into that channel I

cannot imagine. Some people have a gift of conjuring with

conversations. They are almost always frankly and openly interested in

themselves, as Sullivan was interested in himself. You may seek to

foil them; you may even violently wrench the conversation into other

directions. But every effort will be useless. They will beat you. You

had much better lean back in your chair and enjoy their legerdemain.




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