The hall-porter of a certain great club, quartered upon another during the autumnal period of renovation, was one day asked by a member who strode hurriedly into the club, “Are there any letters for Mr. X.?” giving a name in the club list. The porter looked hard at the gentleman, for he could not positively convince himself for the moment that he knew his face as one of the 1,500 members of the club. His gaze, however, was met unflinchingly, and the new arrival’s air and appearance generally giving no cause for suspicion, the porter, having eventually concluded that this must be a member who had been out of England for some time, handed over the letters, with which the gentleman retired into the inner recesses of the club. Half an hour or so later a jeweller arrived and asked for Mr. X., to whom he handed over a valuable piece of jewellery worth several hundreds of pounds, which, he told the hall-porter on leaving, this gentleman (as to whose social position and solvency there could be no question) had ordered two days ago by letter. In due course Mr. X., after giving instructions that no letters were to be forwarded, departed, taking the piece of jewellery with him. What was the hall-porter’s horror the next morning to find himself confronted by another, and this time a real, Mr. X., who, on being told the story of his double, at once dashed off to Scotland Yard. The first Mr. X., it appeared, was an adroit swindler, who having by some means discovered that the real Mr. X., an exceedingly wealthy man, had ordered a jeweller to meet him at the club with a recent purchase, sent a telegram from the latter saying that the setting would not be completed till the next day, and had then gone to the club and personated this member, who he knew only used it upon rare occasions. Another more impudent fraud was the case of a discharged club waiter, who, disguising himself in a pair of blue spectacles, actually walked into the club-house from which he had been dismissed two days before, and, giving a well-known member’s name, cashed a cheque. He victimized two other clubs in the same manner, and was eventually detected at a fourth. One of the smaller West End clubs was formerly renowned for its mechanical hall-porter, an individual who had but an arm and a leg, and moved, it was said, entirely by machinery, the creaking of which, people declared, could be heard when he handed out letters.