When the Westminster had grown up into a goodly body of three hundred members, Mr. George Walker began to find that the duties of secretary were interfering seriously with his other pursuits, and he therefore resigned the office, and was succeeded by Mr. William Greenwood Walker, to whom the chess world is so much indebted for taking down the games of McDonnel. The Club had arrived at its Augustine era, and, in 1838, its fortunes began to wane; the proprietor getting into pecuniary difficulties. Mr. Huttman could not let well alone. He introduced a daily dinner, on plans so profoundly calculated, that the more persons who dined the more he lost. He got the Club, also, into bad odor, by allowing chess to be played there on Sundays. Musical soirées and other nonsense followed; the main object of the establishment thus became ignored, and, instead of new members joining, the old ones fell off one by one, and the princely mansion in Bedford street was shortly to let. Mr. Huttman's pecuniary difficulties perilled the very existence of the Club, notwithstanding that the members handed over to him the reserve fund, amounting to a few hundred pounds. No Club can be said to be in safety without such a fund upon which to fall back in case of emergency, as for instance, retirement of members. Members of chess clubs will retire--prominent ones even--a very frequent cause being marriage; the backsliders, however, often come back eventually. The Westminster Club being now without house or home, looked about for some benevolent individual who would "take them in and do for them." Such an one they found in Mr. Ries, proprietor of the Divan in the Strand, who offered them private rooms in his establishment; thither the _débris_ of the old Westminster forthwith removed. Each member was provided with a latch-key, with which to let himself in at the private door. Here it was that Mr. Staunton appeared for the first time in chess-circles, although he was never a member of the Westminster Club. In its new quarters the association drew out an existence of twelve months, giving up the ghost in 1840.