it is very delicate and nourishing." The chicken-broth was accompanied with a tankard of sound claret, and then the cloth was removed for whist and a bowl of punch. At whist Smith was not considered an eligible partner, for, says Ramsay of Ochtertyre, if an idea struck him in the middle of the game he "either renounced or neglected to call,"[73] and he must have in this way given much provocation to the amiability of Simson, who, though as absent-minded as Smith ever was at common seasons, was always keenly on the alert at cards, and could never quite forgive a slip of his partner in the game. After cards the rest of the evening was spent in cheerful talk or song, in which again Simson was ever the leading spirit. He used to sing Greek odes set to modern airs, which the members never tired of hearing again, for he had a fine voice and threw his soul into the rendering. Professor Robison of Edinburgh, who was one of his students, twice heard him--no doubt at this club, for Simson never went anywhere else--sing a Latin hymn to the Divine Geometer, apparently of his own making, and the tears stood in the worthy old gentleman's eyes with the emotion he put into the singing of it. His conversation is said to have been remarkably animated and various, for he knew most other subjects nearly as well as he did mathematics. He was always full of hard problems suggested by his studies of them, and he threw into the discussion much whimsical humour and many well-told anecdotes. The only subject debarred was religion. Professor Traill says any attempt to introduce that peace-breaking subject in the club was checked with gravity and decision. Simson was invariably chairman, and so much of the life of the club came from his presence that when he died in 1768 the club died too.