ambition, how quickly were the swords beaten into 
absinthes, and the spears into tournedos ! 
S . . . , again, with a face like a portrait by 
Rembrandt, a man of no great intellect, but making 
no pretension thereto, how he was loved for his 
jolly humour, his broad smile, his inimitable sto-
ries ! 
Yet it must not be supposed that the average 
man, however sincere, had much of a welcome 
there.  Without intention to wound, he was yet 
hurt — the arrows of wit shot over his head, and 
he could never feel at home. 
I am perhaps the one exception.  Without a 
ghost of talent, even in my own profession —
 medicine — I had no claim whatever to the hospi-
tality of the Dog.  But being perfectly unobtrusive, I 
dare say I was easy to tolerate, perhaps even of the 
same value as a background is to a picture, a mere 
patch of neutral colour, yet serving to harmonize 
the whole.  Certainly nothing but my silence saved 
me.  The remark a few pages back about Hall 
Caine and Meredith would have caused my instant 
execution, by the most painful, if the least pro-
longed, of deaths. 
Aye !  no society, since men gathered together, 
was ever so easy to approach, to seat oneself among, 
to slip away from, or to be hurled in derision from 
their midst ! 
Dreaded as they were by the charlatan, no set 
of men could have been more closely-knit, more 
genial, more fraternal.  United by a bond of mutual 
respect, even where they differed — of mutual re-
spect, I say, by no means of mutual admiration, for 
it was the sincere artistry that they adored, not the 
technical skill of achievement — they formed a no-
ble and harmonious group, the like of which has 
perhaps never yet been seen. 
Of this circle K . . . was an honoured mem-
ber.  Perfectly at home in all societies, he endeared 
[10]