I met him first at the meeting of the club at which the Scotchman and the piano-mover presented themselves for membership. As to the five outsiders whom Lovey and I had found on arriving, Christian’s prediction was verified. Three went out when their week was over and they had got sobered up. Two stayed behind to go on with the work of reform. At the end of another week each stood up with his next friend, as a bridegroom with his best man, and asked to be taken into fellowship. That was at the great weekly gathering, which took place every Saturday night. Among the hundred and fifty-odd men who had assembled in the two down-stairs sitting-rooms it was not difficult to single out Coningsby, since he was the only man I could see in whom there was nothing blasted or scorched or tragic. There was another there of whom this was true, but I didn’t meet him till toward the end of the evening. I had now been some ten days within the four walls of the club, not sobering up, as you know, but trying to find myself. The figure of speech is a good one, for the real Frank Melbury seemed to have been lost. This other self, this self I was anxious to get rid of, had left him in some bright and relatively innocent world, while it went roaming through a land of sand and thorns. I had distinctly the feeling of being in search of my genuine identity. For this I sat through long hours of every day doing absolutely nothing—that is, it was absolutely nothing so far as the eye could see; but inwardly the spirit was busy. I came, too, to understand that that was the secret of the long, stupefied forenoons and afternoons on the part of my companions. They were stupefied only because sight couldn’t follow the activity of their occupation. Beyond the senses so easily staggered by strong drink there was a man endeavoring to come forth and claim his own. In far, subliminal, unexplored regions of the personality that man was forever at work. I could see him at work. He was at work when the flesh had reached the end of its short tether, and reeled back from its brief and helpless efforts to enjoy. He was at work when the sore and sodden body could do nothing but sit in lumbering idleness. He was at work when the glazed eye could hardly lift its stare from a spot on the floor.