The Reform, as I soon discovered, differed in many respects from any of the clubs to which I had previously belonged. In those days, it was really the headquarters of a great political party, and amongst its members were to be counted many of the leading statesmen of the day. It contained, too, not a few men of letters, and many prominent men of affairs. A new member coming into the club saw these distinguished persons at lunch, or dinner, or taking their ease in smoking or reading rooms; but he had little chance of becoming acquainted with them unless he had some friend by whom he could be introduced. Fortunately for me, I already knew many of the politicians in the Reform, whilst Black was eager to introduce me to his own friends in the club. On the very first day on which I dined there as a member I was formally admitted to the little coterie the members of which lunched at the same hour every day at a particular table in the large coffee room. They were known as the "press-gang," and were the objects, I have always imagined, of the mingled hatred and envy of their fellow-members. They were hated because of their exclusiveness, and envied owing to the fact that there was more laughter at that one table than at all the others put together. It was James Payn who was the chief cause of the laughter. He had himself the loudest laugh of any man I ever met, and he laughed incessantly. Again and again, when his ringing peal sounded through the room and we saw the scandalised faces of our fellow-members, some one amongst us would remind him of the line touching "the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind," but he only laughed the more loudly, and compelled us also to join in his infectious merriment. Looking back upon the years which I was destined to spend in constant association with that most delightful and lovable of men, I sadly realise the fact that since his death I have never laughed as I did in those happy days. The other members of the luncheon-table party at that time were William Black, George Augustus Sala, Sir John Robinson of the _Daily News_, E. D. J. Wilson of the _Times_, and J. C. Parkinson. There were others who came and went, but those I have named were the regular frequenters of the table. The real bond of union between us was Payn; but, as was only natural, the ties of friendship which united all became very close. To-day (1904) Parkinson and myself alone remain of the merry party of twenty years ago. Payn, Black, Robinson, and Sala are dead, and Wilson has sought the more august society of the Athenaeum. The luncheon table is still maintained, and we have found one or two recruits to fill the empty chairs; but I think it is with pity, rather than with envy, that we survivors of the original party are now regarded by our fellow-members.