As most of my readers know, the Carlton Club and the Reform stand side by side in Pall Mall, only separated from each other by a narrow street which gives access to Carlton House Gardens. The windows of the smoking-room at the Reform Club face those of the large library of the Carlton, so that the members of the two clubs may, if they choose, see each other across the narrow roadway. The Conservative meeting was held in the big library of the club. Going into our own smoking-room on the afternoon of the meeting, I saw a well-known member of the club gazing intently across the way at the corresponding apartment in the Carlton. "If you come here," he said, turning to me, "you can see all the members of the Tory party gathering for their meeting." I saw no harm in accepting X.'s invitation, and joined him at the window. We picked out the various notables of the party. By-and-by an evil inspiration seized X. "Let us go upstairs to F.'s room," he said. "We shall see much better from there." I am ashamed to say that I yielded to the temptation, and accompanied X. to the room of a friend who occupied one of the club chambers facing the Carlton. The window happened to be open, so that we had an unimpeded view of the meeting of the Tory party. We could not, of course, hear anything that was said, nor could we see the speakers, who were evidently placed with their backs to us between two of the windows; but we saw the audience, and were amused by the varying expression upon their faces as they listened to their leaders. X.'s insatiable curiosity led him to snatch up an opera-glass that was lying on F.'s dressing-table, and, despite my remonstrance, he took a long survey of the Tory gathering through this instrument. Suddenly I saw a man in the body of the meeting rise to his feet and point straight at our window. Instantly every face in the room flashed round, and I found myself under the concentrated gaze of some hundreds of manifestly indignant men. I seized the wretched X. by the collar and dragged him back from the window. "See what you have done with that abominable opera-glass of yours!" I cried; and then, to my shame and mortification, I saw the blinds pulled down at every window of the Carlton library, and I felt that by our foolish curiosity we had caused this gathering of political opponents to hold their conference in the dark. It is quite true that neither I nor X. had any ulterior motive in our observation of the meeting at the Carlton Club, but all the same I cannot pretend that the use of the opera-glass was not indefensible.