After this nothing more was said by the members, who determined to ignore the presence of their dangerous visitor, who drank three bottles of champagne in enforced silence, for no one would answer him when he spoke. With cool effrontery the latter sat drinking toasts and healths, to the terror of the waiter. At length everyone was much relieved to see him rise and prepare to depart. Before going, however, he took leave with a low bow, at the same time promising to “come earlier next night and have a little more of it.” It was then agreed that half a dozen stout constables should be in waiting the next evening to bear him off to the watch-house if he attempted again to intrude, but Mr. Fitzgerald, aware probably of the reception he might get, never did. The eccentricities of Fighting Fitzgerald bordered closely upon madness, and there is, indeed, reason to think that he was insane. According to the custom of his day, he had in early life been obliged to fight a duel with a man called Swords, who at the first discharge of his pistol had shot off a part of Fitzgerald’s skull, materially injuring the fore part of his brain. The consequence was delirium for a considerable time; but those who knew him intimately were of opinion that he was affected by a certain aberration of intellect until the day of his death, for from the period of this wound he became hot-headed, insolent, quarrelsome, cunning, and ferocious. In the more turbulent days of the past, incidents occurred in clubland which would now be impossible. On one occasion, about three o’clock in the morning, the Duke of York, Colonel St. Leger, Tom Stepney, and others, came up St. James’s Street in very rollicking mood, and, reaching Brooks’s, knocked in vain for admission, everyone being asleep. They were determined, however, to get in, and, when the door was at length cautiously held open, rushed into the inner hall. They commenced the destruction of chairs, tables, and chandeliers, and kicked up such a horrible din as might have awakened the dead. Every male and female servant in the establishment now came running towards the hall from all quarters, in a state of semi-nudity, anxious to assist in protecting the house or to escape from the supposed housebreakers. During this riot there was no light, and the uproar made by the maid-servants, who in the confusion rushed into the arms of the intruders, and expected nothing short of immediate violence and murder, was most tremendous.