Jim’s face relaxed.
“I guess I can stand the pace.”
Cholmondeley was at his wits’ end. Of all the impossible things on earth Jim had asked the most impossible. The Huntingdon was the doyen of London clubs; its titled members could 39 have filled a very large volume. And here was this primal man of the wilderness seeking admission!
“It don’t matter,” said Jim, with a curl of his lip.
Cholmondeley set his teeth.
“I’ll do it,” he said. “It’s going to be demned difficult, but it shall be done. What’s your address?”
“Hotel Cecil.”
“Count it as done.”
The great feat was ultimately achieved. Jim received notification to the effect that he was now a member on probation. By pre-arrangement with the Immaculate One he turned up one morning at the big building in Pall Mall. Cholmondeley, who met him in the vestibule, nearly had a fit when he saw him. He had tacitly thrown out a hint that the Huntingdon was correct in the matter of dress—and Jim turned up in his usual garb.
The wind was knocked clean out of Jim’s sails by the commissionaire’s greeting to Cholmondeley, “Morning, your Lordship.”