It is composed of professional and business men, the law, the army, navy, diplomatic and consular, the arts and sciences, and usually the chief executive of the nation.
"During luncheon Wilton said: 'You ought to be in here.

You are the proper timber.' "I was astounded and told him so.
"He said: 'By the way, the president of the Academy of Design is very much impressed with some work of yours he has seen.

I've heard him, and other artists, also, discussing some pictures of yours which were exhibited in a Fifth Avenue gallery.' "Well, you know, Geraldine, the breath was getting scarcer in my lungs every minute and I hadn't a word to say.

And do you know what that trump of a mining engineer did?
He took me about after luncheon and I met a lot of very corking old ducks and some very eminent and delightful younger ducks, and everybody was terribly nice, and the president of the Academy, who is startlingly young and amiable, said that Guy Wilton had spoken about me, and that it was customary that when anybody was proposed for membership, a man of his own profession should do it.
"And I looked over the club list and saw Billy Van Siclen's name, and now what do you think! Billy has proposed me, Austin, the marine painter, has seconded me, and no end of men have written in my behalf--professors, army men, navy men, business friends of father's, architects, writers--and I'm terribly excited over it, although my excitement has plenty of time to cool because it's a fearfully conservative club and a man has to wait years, anyway.
"This is the very great honour, dear, for it is one even to be proposed for the Pyramid.

I know you will be happy over it.
"D." The weather became hotter toward the beginning of September; his studio was almost unendurable, nor was the house very much better.
To eat was an effort; to sleep a martyrdom.