In these days the Bohemian thinks it no longer good form to roam around the town attired in the negligent seediness of the impecunious student of the Quartier Latin. Unkempt locks, extreme squalor, and dirty finger-nails, are no longer regarded as essential characteristics of the social Bohemian. In the process of evolution we have now arrived at the evening-dress Bohemian. The Eccentric Club at Piccadilly Circus is his chosen resort. The phenomenal success of this club is attributable to the fact that the principal members of the original committee were business men; that it has been enabled to develop on a very small capital—some £700, I think; and that it was so fortunate as to acquire the premises, furniture, and fixtures, of an expiring institution at a ridiculously small figure. This flourishing society grew out of the ashes of the old Coventry, a proprietary club which existed for some years in Coventry Street. When that rather cosy resort went the way of all proprietary clubs, a few of us met at Rule’s, in Maiden Lane, with a view of seeing whether a sufficient number of old Coventry members could not be induced to found another social centre in which men who had for some years come to regard the Coventry as their ordinary place of meeting. The idea caught on. The title “Eccentric” was decided on at our very first meeting. The old premises of the Pelican were to be had on reasonable terms. And we commenced, with a good list of members, in those sacred precincts. Among the actors who joined were “Lal” Brough and Arthur Roberts, and among the artists were Phil May, Julian Price, and Paleologue. The last-named gentleman adorned the walls of the club-house with some very spirited mural decorations. So spirited, indeed, was the fresco from the atelier of Paleologue, that when the club gave what were called “ladies’ days” Paleologue’s canvas had to be removed for the occasion. Knowing who some of the ladies were, and understanding something also of the characteristics of the committee-men who succeeded in carrying this proposal, the arrangement always struck me as being particularly quaint and insular.