One individual, whom the writer recollects, used to enter a certain club and call for all the back numbers which could be obtained of some weekly paper, and then sit solemnly writing at a table surrounded by pile upon pile of the periodical in question. After about an hour of this, he would gather his papers together, and, striding up to the porter’s box, would say: “Please inform the Prime Minister that, after due consideration, I have decided that the Cabinet must resign. I will call next Monday and leave word as to the composition of the new one.”
A very eccentric member of one club had a disquieting craze which caused him to walk perpetually up and down stairs. The moment he came in of a morning he started for the top floor, going upstairs with a preoccupied air, as though he had serious business on hand. Arrived at the topmost landing, he would strike his forehead with the absent-minded despair of a short memory, then turn on his heel and run down again. This operation he would repeat many times a day. The installation of a lift was said to have been a sad blow to him; at first he regarded it with profound distrust, until, with increasing years, he discovered its value, when he became very objectionable to his fellow-members by his excessive use of it.
Another original character who belonged to a well-known club used to spend a considerable time every day contemplating himself in a huge mirror, and bursting into explosive fits of laughter. During the whole of this man’s membership he was supposed only to have once spoken to a fellow-member, who, it should be added, was also rather eccentric.
A less misanthropic though highly unconventional club-man used to remain in bed all day, getting up only about seven, when he would go to his club to have dinner, which was really a breakfast. This habit, it was said, had been considerably strengthened by reason of the fact that, having once broken through it, and got up early in order to witness some sporting event, he had on his return found himself minus his watch—a loss which more than ever convinced him of the dangers of early rising.
Eccentric behaviour in a club once led to an amusing election incident.
A well-known character, who had sat for a certain borough for years, got into considerable trouble at his club—a very exclusive one—owing to having one wet day taken off his boots in the smoking-room, and sat warming his stockinged feet before the fire. Complaints were made to the committee, the members of which, highly indignant, at first proposed to turn the offender out. Eventually he escaped that extreme indignity, though he was severely reprimanded.
Shortly after this the culprit, owing to a General Election, found himself obliged to defend his seat against an exceedingly active Radical opponent possessed of much caustic wit.
At this time hustings still existed, and candidates exchanged raillery, amounting occasionally to abuse.
Both candidates happened to have foreign names, and both entreated the electors to give their votes only to a true-born Englishman.
The sitting member was especially bitter, and indulged in uncompromising abuse of his opponent—an alien against whose exotic ways he cautioned the electors.