argument. Charley sank back into the nearest chair and stared pop-eyed. He insisted on taking the pledge in the presence of witnesses, and went home convinced that he had appropriated the club's property while in an alcoholic stupor. He learned the truth shortly, but his chagrin had been so great that he never again was more than a casual patron of the bar.
Possibly Patrick Francis Murphy would be my nomination for first wit of the club to-day. Mr. Murphy is not an actor, but the American agent of a famous English leather goods house. A passionate lover of the theater and one of the best after-dinner speakers in America, he is a Lamb of the first magnitude. At a club banquet following a Gambol, a guest who was an amateur singer was asked to sing. He sang pretty badly and Wilton Lackaye was heard to remark in a none too sotto voce, "A tenor voice is a disease of the throat."
Mr. Lackaye's acid comment, unfortunately, reached the ears of the guest, and Mr. Murphy, rallying to the rescue, retorted even more audibly, "Don't forget, Wilton, that a pearl is a disease of the oyster."
Mr. Murphy is a Roman Catholic and the Ten Commandments have not the same order
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