The regulations passed in 1828 laid down that dinner at 10s. 6d. per head shall be ready at a quarter before six every day from November 1 to the Prince of Wales’s birthday (August 12th). “If the number at dinner shall not exceed four, they shall have no reckoning to pay but for wine, fruits, etc. If the number exceeds four, the 2 guineas shall be deducted from the whole reckoning.” Dinner was served at half-past four; and the bill was brought in at seven. Supper began at eleven, and ended at half an hour after midnight. The cost of the dinner was 8s. a head, and of the supper 6s.; and anyone who had been present during any part of the meal hours paid his share of the wine, in accordance with the old law of British conviviality. No gaming was allowed in the “eating room” except “tossing up for reckonings,” under the penalty of paying the whole bill of the members present. The ballot took place between eleven at night and one in the morning, which custom continued until 1844, when the hours were altered to between three and five in the afternoon. A single black ball excluded, and a member who joined any other club, except White’s, was at once struck off the books. As manager of the club, Brooks appears to have been a most accommodating individual. He is described by Tickell, in a copy of verses addressed to Sheridan, as “Liberal Brookes, whose speculative skill Is hasty credit and a distant bill; Who, nursed in clubs, disdains a vulgar trade, Exults to trust, and blushes to be paid.” It may be added that, as a consequence of the above-mentioned diffidence, Brooks died a poor man in 1782. Indeed, according to tradition, his creditors were so rapacious that, in order to defeat them, his body was interred in a small vault, still existing, under the pavement of St. James’s Street. For this, however, there is no sort of evidence in the records of the club, and the legend may have been suggested by the smallness of the vault, which would just contain a coffin.