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16 ever heard another say an unkind word, whose hand was always in his none too well-filled pockets, and whose sympathies were always ready to be enlisted in any forlorn cause, deserving or otherwise. At his right hand sat Wrayson; on his left Sydney Mason, a rising young sculptor, and also a popular member of this somewhat Bohemian circle. Opposite was Stephen Heneage, a man of a different and more secretive type. He called himself a barrister, but he never practised; a journalist at times, but he seldom put his name to anything he wrote. His interests, if he had any, he kept to himself. In a club where a man's standing was reckoned by what he was and what he produced, he owed such consideration as he received to a certain air of reserved strength, the more noteworthy amongst a little coterie of men, who amongst themselves were accustomed to speak their minds freely, and at all times. If he was never brilliant, he had never been heard to say a foolish thing or make a pointless remark. He moved on his way through life, and held his place there more by reason of certain negative qualities which, amongst a community of optimists, were universally ascribed to him, than through any more personal or likable gifts. He had a dark, strong face, but a slim, weakly body. He was never unduly silent, but he was a better listener than talker. If he had no close friends, he certainly had no enemies. Whether he was rich or poor no man knew, but next to the Colonel himself, no one was more ready to subscribe to any of those charities which the Sheridanites were continually inaugurating on behalf of their less fortunate members. The man who succeeds in keeping the "ego" out of sight as a rule neither irritates nor greatly attracts.