The food was ordered, and Gobion asked them what they would drink. Heath, with a sublime disregard for bulk, ordered lager; the other two, simple "halves" of bitter. While the meal was in progress a man came in from a side door. Heath called him, introducing him to Gobion as Mr. Hamilton, the owner of the place. Wild explained to Gobion that he was now free of the "copy shop." "You see," said he, "this is a place almost entirely used by journalists of a non-political kind. Everyone knows everyone else, and Hamilton knows us all by name. An outsider who wanders in here is not encouraged to repeat his visit, unless he is vouched for by someone, for the place is really more like a club than a public bar." After lunch they went into the lounge, which was filled with men, mostly young, who all seemed to know one another by their Christian names. Heath was hailed cordially. A man sitting on the table stood up, and said theatrically, "Enter the Pilgrim, arch-druid of the loving Mountain--slow music. Well, my fat friend, what wicked scandal do you come fresh from concocting? What lewd pars are even now in the copy box at 162, Strand?" The Pilgrim grinned. "Gentlemen, let me introduce my latest permanent recruit, Mr. Yardly Gobion. He has just been sent down from Exeter." Gobion was welcomed as a brother, and in half an hour had taken up his favourite position on the hearthrug. Exerting himself to the utmost, he found he could produce much the same impression as he did in Oxford, and he was a pronounced success in perhaps one of the most critical coteries in London. They were critics of everything, criticism was in their veins, they lived on it; they were "the men who had failed in literature and art." Every now and then a man or two on an evening paper would come in hastily for a drink, and there was a quick interchange of technicalities, a chorus of experts, sharp, clipped, allusive; the latest wire from the Central News, the newest story from the clubs, the smartest headline of the afternoon. Gobion soon caught the note and was voted an acquisition. Although he was of a somewhat finer grain than most of these men, he recognized the type instantly. Cheap cynicism was the keynote of most of the conversation, and his lighter side revelled in it. Most complex of all men, he could suck pleasure from every shade of feeling. Lord Tennyson's beautiful line: "A glorious devil large in heart and brain," fitted him exactly. With his intellect he might have been a saint, instead of which he was sublime in nothing whatever. With the face of an angel, he loved goodness for its beauty, and sin for its excitement. Before he left the "copy shop" he had picked up several good stories, and saw his way to at least half a dozen scandalous paragraphs, which he would send to a provincial paper with which he had some connection.