One or two men standing at the zinc bar called on Erb to have a drink, but Erb replied, “Afterwards,” and went up the wooden staircase to the club room. There, on the landing, men were consulting in undertones, which they changed for much louder speech on seeing Erb, commencing to talk noisily of contests with superiors whom they had, it appeared, worsted in argument; of fresh young horses that required a somewhat similar treatment; of trouble in regard to Shuts-up, to water allowances, to Brought-backs, and other technical matters. A late colleague of Erb’s introduced him to those who were strangers, and Erb made quite a considerable effort to exhibit friendly manners, until a South Western man, mistaking him for Spanswick, told him some of the things that were being said about young Barnes, whereupon Erb left and went into the club room. In the club room tables had been arranged in something of the shape of a capital U, and at the base a wooden hammer had been placed and a decanter and tumbler; sheets of blue foolscap and scarlet blotting paper gave the room an official, business-like appearance. Payne was there in mufti as to coat, in uniform as to waistcoat and corduroy trousers; he was to be proposed as Chairman, and he stood now with his face to a Scotch whisky advertisement, his lips moving silently; he nodded to Erb, and went on with his rehearsal. Spanswick coming up with his _entourage_, took one of the sheets of paper and, with the stump of a pencil, began to make calculations which were audited, as he went on, by his friends. A few of the men marked the special nature of the proceedings by smoking cigars. The alert clock on the mantelpiece struck the half-hour in a sharp, energetic way and hurried on. “I beg to move that Jack Payne do take the chair.” “I beg to second.” “All in favour,” said the first voice. “On the contrary? Carried unanimously and nem. con. Jack” (turning to Mr. Payne), “in you go.” “In ordinary circs,” said Payne, after he had taken the chair and had risen to some applause, “I’m perfectly well aware that the proper course to pursue at an affair like this is for the chair to call on the secretary to read the minutes of the last meeting. I know that without any of you telling me. But we’re in the position to-night of not ’aving no secretary and not ’aving no previous meetin’.” The heads around the table nodded agreement. A gloomy man seated in the position that a vice-chairman might have occupied half rose and said, “Mr. Chairman, sir,” and was at once pulled back into his chair by those near him. “I was never a man,” went on the Chairman, his forehead damp with nervousness, “to what you may call force me opinions on any body of men. ’Cepting once, and that was at New Cross in ’89. I forget exactly what it was about, and I forget who was there, and I forget what I said, but the entire incident is quite fresh in my memory, and, as I say, that was the only occasion on which—”