Page:Chesterton - The Club of Queer Trades.djvu/289

The Seclusion of the Old Lady An instant after he ran back again, twittering with a timid ecstasy.

"He's there, gentlemen—he's there all right—he's coming in now," he cried, and sat down. Rupert and I could hardly help feeling the beginnings of a sort of wonder as to who this person might be who was the first member of this insane brotherhood, Who, we thought indistinctly, could be maddest in this world of madmen; what fantastic was it whose shadow filled all these fantastics with so loyal an expectation?

Suddenly we were answered. The door flew open and the room was filled and shaken with a shout, in the midst of which Basil Grant, smiling and in evening dress, took his seat at the head of the table.

How we ate that dinner I have no idea. In the common way I am a person particularly prone to enjoy the long luxuriance of the club dinner. But on this occasion it seemed a hopeless and endless string of courses. Hors-d'œuvres sardines seemed as big as herrings, soup seemed a sort of ocean, larks were ducks, ducks were ostriches until 265