Some irrepressible jokers have paid for their love of fun by having to resign their membership. One of them, whose escapades were notorious in London twenty years ago, sitting half asleep in a certain Bohemian club, became very much annoyed at a very red-headed waiter who kept buzzing about his chair. The sight of the fiery locks was eventually too much for this wild spirit, and, darting up and seizing the man, he emptied an inkstand over his head before he could escape.
The result, of course, was expulsion from the club, besides which very substantial compensation was rightly paid to the poor waiter, who complained that he could not go about his work in a parti-coloured condition, and it would take some time before the effects of the ink disappeared.
Members who have developed undue eccentricity occasionally cause uneasiness to their fellow-clubmen, for it is sometimes difficult exactly to define the point where personal idiosyncrasies become disquieting to others.
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.