To spend this one evening at his
favorite club had been his custom for years--ever since he had
been elected to full membership--a date so far back in the dim
past that the oldest habitue had to search the records to make
sure of the year, and this custom he still regularly kept up.
That the quaint old club-house was but a stone's throw from his
own quarters in Fifteenth Street made no difference; he would
willingly have tramped to Murray Hill and beyond--even as far as
the big reservoir, had the younger and more progressive element
among the members picked the institution up bodily and moved it
that far--as later on they did.
Not that he favored any such innovation: "Move up-town! Why, my
dear sir!" he protested, when the subject was first mentioned, "is
there nothing in the polish of these old tables and chairs, rubbed
bright by the elbows of countless good fellows, that appeals to
you? Do you think any modern varnish can replace it? Here I have
sat for thirty years or more, and--please God!--here I want to
continue to sit.
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