The Merry Past 



was composed of actors scarcely a remove from 

 supers ; journalists who were really little better than 

 penny-a-liners ; artists sketching for magazines, or 

 painting for the dealers at famine prices ; stage- 

 managers of unknown theatres ; authors who slaved 

 for the publishers as hacks ; and barristers who had 

 never held a brief. In addition to these the com- 

 pany as a rule included one or two men whom drink 

 had " broke," and who were picking up a livelihood 

 as best they could ; and a sprinkling of " swells from 

 the West End." 



The multiplication of clubs has caused a veritable 

 revolution in the life of the bachelor living in the 

 West End, the old tavern dinner being a thing of 

 the past. In a club, after paying his entrance 

 fee, a member finds himself part owner of a most 

 splendid town house, where the tax-collector never 

 intrudes, where repairs and dilapidations never con- 

 cern him, where attentive servants wait upon his 

 every order, where everything provided is of the very 

 best (when it suits the committee to give satis- 

 faction), where retirement can be obtained without 

 the depressing sense of solitude, and where com- 

 panionship can be enjoyed without the dangers of 

 intrusion. 



A fashionable hotel in the days of the Regency was 

 Stevens', in Bond Street, the head-quarters of many 

 a man about town. A number of saddle-horses, 

 tilburies, and other smart turn-outs, were generally 

 outside its doors, belonging to well-known habitues 

 of the house, where a prodigious amount of 



N 177 



