Mr. Charles couldn't enlighten him; but his host suggested that the Scotch didn't know how to pronounce their own names, and weren't very particular how they treated English ones. The secretary of the club dragged Mr. Sinclair off before he could return fire to introduce him to one craving his hand-shake, and Mr. Puddephatt, who appeared to be known only as Adrian Grant among the members, said to Henry that whenever he saw Sinclair he thought of a boiled egg, because the fellow seemed so small and thin that he felt he could break his skull with a tap of a spoon. "Ah, Mr. Grinton, how do you do?... My guest, Mr. Charles, of the _Watchman_--a coming man, my dear Grinton, a coming man." Mr. Edward Grinton shook hands with the coming man, who was never in a more retiring mood. "I read the _Watchman_," he said, "and like it, but I wish it wouldn't worry about my literary style. The only test of merit in novels, Mr. Charles, is sales. Ask at any bookseller if his customers care a straw for literary style. They want a story, and I give 'em what they--Ah, Tredgold! Still slogging at that play?" and Mr. Grinton turned abruptly to another member who had two plays running at London theatres, and, in Grinton's phrase, "made pots of money." This Grinton no longer holds the bookstalls in the palm of his hand. His star has set; but at that time his stories sold enormously, and earned him a large income. They were common trash, concerned chiefly with mysterious murders, and each had a startling picture on the cover, which the publisher alleged was the chief cause of their success. He had curly hair. That was the only thing about him Henry noticed. In turn he was next introduced to Henry Davies, the editor of the _Morning Sun_, the great Radical daily--a man who stuttered strangely, and had difficulty in saying that he was p--p--pleased to m--m--meet Mr. Ch--Ch--Charles; Mr. Frederick Fleming, the well-known dramatic critic of the _Daily Journal_; and other celebrities whom he had long worshipped from afar. The most ordinary mortals all; not one of them had the mystic touch of Adrian Grant, who seemed to Henry the most distinguished man among the company. "Dinner is served, gentlemen," the waiter called, in rousing tones, and instantly the babble ceased, and members and guests filed out to the dining-room. Henry was seated next to his host, and had on his right Mr. Bone, the eminent publisher, who happened to be the guest of Grinton, the novelist. The lion lay down with the lamb in the Pen and Pencil Club.