Shelton stared at the youth's hand, at his frowns and the taps he gave his forehead while he found the expression of his meaning; he was intensely interested. The youth broke off, looked at his watch, and, blushing brightly, said: “I 'm afraid I have to go; I have to be at the 'Den' before eleven.” “I must be off, too,” said Shelton. Making their adieux together, they sought their hats and coats. CHAPTER XIV THE NIGHT CLUB “May I ask,” said Shelton, as he and the youth came out into the chilly street, “What it is you call the 'Den'.” His companion smilingly answered: “Oh, the night club. We take it in turns. Thursday is my night. Would you like to come? You see a lot of types. It's only round the corner.” Shelton digested a momentary doubt, and answered: “Yes, immensely.” They reached the corner house in an angle of a dismal street, through the open door of which two men had just gone in. Following, they ascended some wooden, fresh-washed stairs, and entered a large boarded room smelling of sawdust, gas, stale coffee, and old clothes. It was furnished with a bagatelle board, two or three wooden tables, some wooden forms, and a wooden bookcase. Seated on these wooden chairs, or standing up, were youths, and older men of the working class, who seemed to Shelton to be peculiarly dejected. One was reading, one against the wall was drinking coffee with a disillusioned air, two were playing chess, and a group of four made a ceaseless clatter with the bagatelle. A little man in a dark suit, with a pale face, thin lips, and deep-set, black-encircled eyes, who was obviously in charge, came up with an anaemic smile. “You 're rather late,” he said to Curly, and, looking ascetically at Shelton, asked, without waiting for an introduction: “Do you play chess? There 's young Smith wants a game.” A youth with a wooden face, already seated before a fly-blown chess-board, asked him drearily if he would have black or white. Shelton took white; he was oppressed by the virtuous odour of this room. The little man with the deep blue eyes came up, stood in an uneasy attitude, and watched: “Your play's improving, young Smith,” he said; “I should think you'd be able to give Banks a knight.” His eyes rested on Shelton, fanatical and dreary; his monotonous voice was suffering and nasal; he was continually sucking in his lips, as though determined to subdue 'the flesh. “You should come here often,” he said to Shelton, as the latter received checkmate; “you 'd get some good practice. We've several very fair players. You're not as good as Jones or Bartholomew,” he added to Shelton's opponent, as though he felt it a duty to put the latter in his place. “You ought to come here often,” he repeated to Shelton; “we have a lot of very good young fellows”; and, with a touch of complacence, he glanced around the dismal room. “There are not so many here tonight as usual. Where are Toombs and Body?”