At this hour there were some twenty members in the large room reading, talking or playing dominoes. Others came in and went out occasionally, and of these more than half approached Cayley to say effusively: "Hello, old man, how goes it?" or some such similarly luminous remark. This was as offensive to Cayley as the wearing of his hat in the club was to the old men. Nothing annoyed him so much as to be interrupted while reading his letters. Yet he always looked up with a smile, and replied:
"Oh, so-so—what's the news?"
To be sure, Cayley's mail to-day was not so important that these hindrances much mattered. The study of Esperanto was his latest fad. With several Misses, Frauleins and Mademoiselles on the official list of the "Esperantistoj," and whom he suspected of being young and beautiful, he had begun a systematic correspondence. The greater part of the answers he received were dull and innocuous, written on picture post-cards. From Odessa, from Siberia, Rio de Janeiro, Cambodia, Moldavia and New Zealand such missives came. Those which were merely perfunctory, or showed but a desire to obtain a San Francisco post-card for a growing collection, he threw into the waste-basket. Others, whose originality promised a flirtation more affording, he answered ingeniously.
A man suddenly slapped him on the shoulder.
"Hello, Blanchard, have a game of dominoes?"
"No, thanks."
"Come and have a drink, then."
"No, thanks, I'm on the wagon now."
"Go to the devil."
"Same to you."