The Notched Hairpin by H. F. Heard Page B

told with ease and a certain finish; then introduced a slightly more varied flavor as we applauded. Finally, remarking that we were evidently adult, he began to talk of real underlife. As he began to illustrate, I remembered—and at once doubted whether his name was Crofts, and was simultaneously pleased with the quiet effrontery of the man. He had dropped the baronetcy, for that might be too obvious, but he had picked the name—or maybe the name had picked him—from the still grimmer partner of Shaw’s otherwise grimmest character, Mrs. Warren. He began to talk with a lovely mixture of sentiment, business, and lechery of his ‘hotels.’ And before we knew it, he was offering to let us stay at one.
    â€œâ€˜We have to pick our clientele,’ he said, airily waving his cigar like a bookie. ‘Personal service, personal introduction; everything in the best taste—the apartments, the cuisine, down to the girls’ dresses and conversation; perfect gentlemen on one side, and perfect ladies provided on the other. It’s a large, exhaustive piece of work. There’s nothing that can make for the comfort of the one and the rightful profit of the other that is not thought of by our firm.’
    â€œWe were half delighted at the disgusting hypocrisy of the man mixed with the cunning and brutality, and half feeling that we had had nearly enough. But then, none of us dared to show his lily liver to the mockery of the rest.
    â€œFinally, as he saw we were hanging back, he remarked with a banter that nearly turned our flank, ‘Well, perhaps you’re too modern to care for the standard honest commodity I trade in. I ought to have guessed—being myself really only the type of man that would be happiest as an English squire, if taxes let me—that your taste would be rather too sickly for my palate,’ and he took a big swig of whisky, raw. ‘So, as you have your own idea of candy, and it certainly isn’t mine and I don’t cater in it, perhaps you’d be more interested in the capital and cash side. You could make quite a lot on quite a little.’
    â€œHe looked around to see if avarice would work where he feared lust had failed, I think someone made an appointment with him. But I did not feel, I am sure, the slightest moral prejudice, only that this cad was too near home, and that if he once got one in his hands one might find one was being squeezed by a most capable blackmailer. I’m sure that was my only reason for not going on in the direction in which now I see my tendency and events were forcing me.
    â€œFor we did go on trying to find other trial shockers, as we called them. And the next was our last. The next did, at length, bring this modern silly madness of hell-fire clubism to a head. Our secretary, who showed industry worthy of a better pursuit, went on hunting for oddities. He drew a few blanks, it is true, but one day he came in elated.
    â€œâ€˜Look at our list,’ he said boastfully. ‘Up to date our catalogue of crooks runs its roll of industries—Limey, with gin for gringos; the Alsatian, with bombs for Bengalese; Crofts, with repression-ridding for undergraduates; and our little Armenian with his ’eroin for Arabs, and in the end for all Europe. And now I can crown the list.’
    â€œTo our ‘Who?’ he said ‘Wait.’
    â€œWell, he certainly was right. His find crowned and closed the list.”
    Millum paused, and then added, “And has led, among other things, to us three being here. I can see that evening. We used to have that hideous hole in which we met lit with those awful incandescent gas mantles, over which were draped those shades just like a woman’s hat in the nineties. The room was always, therefore, hot, and a slight whistling sound as of an asthmatic pug came from the lights. Our secretary was to bring our guest, and five minutes after we were all ready, the door