All the members of the club were now listening with intense interest; and John began with, “Your face, sir, seems strangely familiar--”
“Wait,” said the visitor, with a sad smile, “until you hear my story. Once, as I said before, I sat in this very game nearly every night; but now what am I? One day--it was five years ago--some fiend incarnate led me all unknowing to a reception in an artist’s studio. Tea was ordered--I partook of it and was lost. Since then I have gone down, down, down; and to-morrow I leave this city forever. There is but one thing left for me to do. You will see me no more after to-night. Do none of you remember Walter Weakfish?”
“Walter Weakfish!” gasped John. “Why, I thought you were in Philadelphia, doing the ‘Old Uncle’--”
“No,” replied the unhappy young man, “I have been worse than that. I have been a Society reporter. Yes, it is I who have written about the lovely ‘Spriggie’ Stone and the queenly Mrs. ‘Jack’ Astorbilt, who wore a passementerie of real lace down the front breadth of her moire antique gown. I wrote about those people so much that finally I imagined that I knew them; and then I borrowed money from people who did know them, and ordered clothes from their tailors, until now Avenue A is my favorite thoroughfare. And now I must leave the city forever; but, Herbert, do you take warning from the wreck you see before you now. Good-by, my old friends!” And Walter Weakfish started for the door.
“Stay!” cried John. “Can we do nothing for you? Shall we never see you again?”
“No,” replied Walter, pausing for a moment on the threshold, “never again: for I am going to Washington to patrol the great national free-lunch route which they call Official Society, and to write correspondence for the Western papers. After that, the morgue.”
The door closed, and he was gone. Then a moment’s silence was broken by a wail of anguish from Herbert.
“Thank Heaven!” cried John, “his heart is touched, and he is saved. Everybody in the room have something with me.”
And before morning the swelling in Herbert’s head was reduced so rapidly that he had to drink thirteen hot Scotches to counteract it. And from that day to this he has never been to another kettledrum, nor taken anything stronger than rye whisky.