“I’ll think of it,” old Jolyon would answer; but when he did think of it there was always the question of fifty guineasentrance fee, and it would take him four or five years to get in. He continued to think of it.

He was too old to be a Liberal, had long ceased to believe in the political doctrines of his Club, had even been known toallude to them as ‘wretched stuff,’ and it afforded him pleasure to continue a member in the teeth of principles so opposedto his own. He had always had a contempt for the place, having joined it many years ago when they refused to have him at the‘Hotch Potch’ owing to his being ‘in trade.’ As if he were not as good as any of them! He naturally despised the Club thatdid take him. The members were a poor lot, many of them in the City — stockbrokers, solicitors, auctioneers — what not! Likemost men of strong character but not too much originality, old Jolyon set small store by the class to which he belonged.Faithfully he followed their customs, social and otherwise, and secretly he thought them ‘a common lot.’

Years and philosophy, of which he had his share, had dimmed the recollection of his defeat at the ‘Hotch Potch’; and nowin his thoughts it was enshrined as the Queen of Clubs. He would have been a member all these years himself, but, owing tothe slipshod way his proposer, Jack Herring, had gone to work, they had not known what they were doing in keeping him out.Why! they had taken his son Jo at once, and he believed the boy was still a member; he had received a letter dated fromthere eight years ago.

He had not been near the ‘Disunion’ for months, and the house had undergone the piebald decoration which people bestow onold houses and old ships when anxious to sell them.