place twice a week, on Tuesdays and Saturdays.
We had tea and muffins at eight, and there was a
very large bottle of water on the table in case
any of the members should afterwards require
additional refreshment. Sometimes we talked,
sometimes we made speeches, sometimes a
member would read us a paper on some subject with
which he was acquainted. Sometimes, again, we
debated on general topics, the subject for the
evening chalked up on a black board thus:
"Whether of the two was the greatest man,
Napoleon Bonaparte or Alexander the Great?"
Or, "The madness of Hamlet, was it feigned or
real?" Never did anything bordering on what is
called an "unpleasantness" take place at any of
our meetings. Were we not mutual?

I may here mention, in order to disarm any ill-
disposed person who might otherwise think
proper to bring the circumstance up against us
hereafter, that some obscure individual who was
invited to spend the evening with us, went away
and spoke of us afterwards in terms of great
disparagement, giving us the preposterous name of
the "United Bores."

I have said all that is necessary concerning
the structure of our club, and I will only add
that our expenses were very few, and our
subscription, in consequence, extremely low. It was
a curious thing, by the way, and a circumstance
in every way gratifying to remember, that C. J.
evidently understood from the first, and without
requiring explanation, that he was to be an honorary
member, and never once insulted us by so
much as the offer of a subscription. One of
our members—our least amiable one—Mr.
Carpew, did ask on one occasion, in the absence
of Mr. Brogg, whether that gentleman had been
originally proposed as an honorary member or
an ordinary one, but it was universally agreed
that the question was wanting in mutuality, and
it had to be withdrawn in consequence.

That was a remarkable day in the history of
our Union on which the great C. J. Brogg was
for the first time encircled, so to speak, by its
mutuality. To me, indeed, the occasion was one
of a special kind altogether, for on that day was
laid the first stone of a structure which was to
prove of an enduring sort—a structure both useful
and ornamental—I mean the friendship which
was to exist afterwards between Brogg and
myself, and whose commencement dated from that
very evening when Mr. Smear introduced his
once pupil, now friend, to the members of the
Mutual Union.

It was evening. We were all assembled round the
green board, the hands of the clock pointed
to nine o'clock, when the sound of footsteps was
heard without, there was a knock at the door of
the room, and in another moment the form of
C. J. Brogg, as elsewhere described, stood before
us. The excitement was tremendous. We all
started to our feet and hastened to rally round
our new member, and greet him with words of
friendship and welcome. All, I should have said,
except Mr. Sideways, who was at the very crisis
of a profile, and who waited to finish it before
he rose to make his bow to the illustrious neophyte.
C. J. was accompanied by his brother, an agreeable
intelligent person no doubt, but he sunk, as
might be expected, into total insignificance by
the side of his brother. Not but that as time wore
on he soon won golden opinions, and was
liked by everybody—but then his brother—who
could think on this occasion of anybody but
C. J.? The Reverend Christopher Smear seemed
to take possession of his former pupil from the
first, looking round upon us whenever Mr. Brogg
spoke, as with a sense of proprietorship and
responsibility.

It was one of our conversational or debating
evenings, and by Mr. Brogg's desire we all went
at it just as we usually did, and as if he were not
present. It was my business to say a few words by
way of making a beginning, and then anybody
spoke who liked. I merely had to announce
the subject, and set it going, a performance which
I went through on this particular occasion with a
particular trepidation and nervousness. We had
found it needful to adhere to certain formalities
in our debates, and one of these was that no
gentleman was ever alluded to by name. "The
gentleman occupying the second chair on the
left," or "my honourable friend on the third
chair right," these were the appellations by which
we were called, and I think it helped to preserve
order, or, in other words, to keep up a feeling of
mutuality. Mr. Carpew, by-the-by, who generally
differed from the rest of us, had a wooden chair
of his own, by which he was distinguished when
alluded to in debate.

"The National Expenditure—is it ordered in
a manner agreeable to the views of the nation at
large?" This was our subject on the evening of
which we are now speaking. Mr. Best rose
immediately after I had made the announcement,
and so did Mr. Carpew. The former gentleman,
however, had succeeded in catching my eye, and
so the word was with him. I had sometimes
thought, though I had never said so, that this
same Mr. Best was rather a trying person.
Everything was always so very right with him.
Everything which seemed annoying and ill-
organised to others, was in his eyes extremely
satisfactory. "The annoyance never came in
his way? The officials had always behaved very
well to him" he would say. And so with private
individuals, they were all delightful. "He has
always been excessively kind and civil to me,"
would be his words, when some acknowledged
bear was being talked about; or, "whenever he
has been with me he has shown none of these
qualities." He liked everything: an east wind,
an organ playing before his door.

Mr. Best, or, more properly speaking, the
second chair on the left, rose and placed his
knuckles on the table, and put his blotting-book
straight, and remarked that the subject which
had been selected for discussion was one of the
most important with which it was possible for
us to occupy ourselves. The government was