There was a burst of cheering as we entered the room. The song was finished, and there was a movement among the audience. “It’s the interval,” said Malim.
Men surged out of the packed front room into the passage, and then into a sort of bar parlour. Malim and I also made our way there. “That’s the fetish of the club,” said Malim, pointing to a barrel standing on end; “and I’ll introduce you to the man who is sitting on it. He’s little Michael, the musical critic. They once put on an operetta of his at the Court. It ran about two nights, but he reckons all the events of the world from the date of its production.”
“Mr. Cloyster—Mr. Michael.”
The musician hopped down from the barrel and shook hands. He was a dapper little person, and had a trick of punctuating every sentence with a snigger.
“Cheer-o,” he said genially. “Is this your first visit?”
I said it was.
“Then sit on the barrel. We are the only club in London who can offer you the privilege.” Accordingly I sat on the barrel, and through a murmur of applause I could hear Michael telling someone that he’d first seen that barrel five years before his operetta came out at the Court.
At that moment a venerable figure strode with dignity into the bar.
“Maundrell,” said Malim to me. “The last of the old Bohemians. An old actor. Always wears the steeple hat and a long coat with skirts.”
The survivor of the days of Kean uttered a bellow for whisky-and-water. “That barrel,” he said, “reminds me of Buckstone’s days at the Haymarket. After the performance we used to meet at the Café de l’Europe, a few yards from the theatre. Our secret society sat there.”