The Duke of Wellington was a "free" house and Mr. Josiah Munt had been able to maintain in its integrity the declining art of brewing Blackhampton Old Ale. This had a bite and a sting in it, with which the more diluted beverages of "tied" houses could not compare. At the Duke of Wellington you paid for the best and you got it; therefore it was patronized by all in the neighborhood who knew what was what; it had, moreover, peculiar advantages of tradition and geography which gave it a cachet of its own. "To have one" at the Duke of Wellington, in the eyes of those who lived near by, was almost on a par with "looking in" at Brooks's or the Carlton. It conferred a kind of diploma of local worth and responsibility. At the same time no form of politics was barred, but the proprietor himself was a staunch conservative and it was very difficult to find a welcome in the bar parlor without sharing that faith. It could not be said that William Hollis had ever aspired to the good graces of the house. There were obvious reasons why this was the case. For sixteen years he had not passed through its doors; in that long period he had not even entered the humbler part of the premises known as "the vaults," sacred to Tom, Dick and Harry, where the more substantial patrons of the establishment disdained to set foot. To-night, however, new and strange forces were at work in Bill. Borne along a tide of cosmic events as far as those fascinating doors he was suddenly and quite irrationally mastered by a desire to go in. Partly it may have been bravado; certainly it was a daring act to cross that threshold. But Josiah himself, for whose personal prowess his son-in-law had a wholesome respect, was safe at the Show; besides, the proprietor was too great a man these days to visit the house very often. Years ago he had ceased to reside there with his family; and in his steady social ascent he was careful not to emphasize a dubious but extremely lucrative connection with that which regarded in perspective was but a common public house. The chances were that Bill Hollis would be spared this evening an encounter with his father-in-law and former master. But why he should decide so suddenly to take the risk was hard to say, unless it was the half fantastic reaction of an exceedingly impressionable mind to a crisis almost without a precedent in human experience. By nature a sociable fellow, he had now an intense desire to exchange ideas with responsible, knowledgeable people, with those possessing more light than himself. The Duke of Wellington was the headquarters of such in that part of the city; it was the haunt of the quidnuncs and the well informed; and it may have been for that reason that Bill dived suddenly through the swing doors, an act he had not performed for sixteen years, and crossed the dark, cool passage with its highly spiced but not unattractive odors.