THE CELIBATES' CLUB



^n^^




G^rfbf^djjo'ij-g,.;'



'I MET HIM IN THE ATLANTIC AND CONGRATULATED HIM."

Seep. 186.



THE CELIBATES' CLUB

BEING THE UNITED STORIES OF

THE BACHELORS' CLUB

AND

THE OLD MAIDS' CLUB



BY



I. ZANGWILL

AUTHOR OF "THE GREY WIG," "CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO,"
ETC., ETC.



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.
1905

All rights reserved



Copyright, 1905,
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY.



Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1905. Reprinted
July, 1905.



Xoitocioti }J3rc3S

J. 8. Cushin}; it c'o. — liurwick it Smith Co.

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.



A LAST FOREWORD

It 7vas inevitable that the Bachelors' Club and the
Old Maids' Club should one day be united, and that
the banjis should be published by my publisher in
ordinary. They are able to live more eheaply together
than apai't, ivJiicJi is, perhaps, some excuse for their
unio)i. It only remains for me to pro)iounce a pater-
nal benediction, to hope that they may co?itinue bound
together, for better or for ivorse, cancelling each other's
faults and enhancing each others virtues, doublitig
the profits, and halving the losses, till death doth them
part, or — more probably — consign th:m to a commofi
oblivion.

L Z.



414602



THE BACHELORS' CLUB

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEORGE HUTCHINSON

A slavery beyond cnduritig.

But that 'tis of their 02vn procuring.

As spiders never seek the fly.

But leave him of himself t' apply ;

So tnen are by themselves employed.

To quit the freedom they enjoyed,

And run their necks into a noose,

They'd break 'em after to break loose.

— HUDIBRAS.

A man may have a quarrel to marry when he will.

— BACON'S ESSAYS.



CAUTION

In writing TJic Bachelors Club I have not so much
had in view the public interest as. my own. While
I have carefully endeavoured to free the book from
anything instructive, I have not shrunk from making
it amusing, even at the risk of being taken seriously ;
and if I succeed in making only one reader laugh,
I shall have written wholly in vain. The subject of
the work is one that is full of interest, especially to
readers of either sex, and I venture to hope that I
have treated it as well as it deserves. The book
is hereby dedicated to the bachelors and maidens of
the world, in the hope that they will each buy a
copy, and recommend its purchase to their married
friends. It may be as well to state that the work
does not libel any of the existing Bachelors' Clubs
in particular, but all the others. An index to the
jokes is in preparation and will be forwarded to all
professional humorists on application, in writing, to
the publishers. Some of these jokes have already
appeared in Ariel, and I have to thank myself for
my kind permission to reproduce them. I regret



xii CA UTION

there should be some Shakespearean puns amongst
them, as they will be a difficulty to the Chinese
translator, but he may rely on my cordial co-opera-
tion. I have also to apologise to my critics for this
book not being some other book, though it shall
not occur again, as my next book will be. In con-
clusion, I have to acknowledge my indebtedness to
my friend and fellow-Bachelor, Mr. M. D. Eder,
for numerous valuable suggestions. Whatever the
reader or the critic does not like in this work Mr.
Eder suggested.

I. Z.



CONTENTS



PAGE



Prologue: Of the Bachelors, their Beliefs and By-
Laws I

CHAPTER

I. The Second Ticket 13

II. The Feudal Angel " , .24

III. Hamlet up to Date 35

IV. The Bachelor Abroad 79

V. The Fall of Israfel 96

VI . The Logic of Love 130

VII. A Novel Advertisement 165

VIII. A New Matrimonial Relation ... . 183

IX. Marrying for Money 201

X. The Original Sinner 226

XI. A Bolt from the Blue 253

XII. Lady-Day 286



THE BACHELORS' CLUB



PROLOGUE



OF THE BACHELORS, THEIR BELIEFS AND BY-LAWS




Bachelors' Club

^ was a Club in

c^rM'^^^^^lk #^ iff W^ which all the

members, with-
out exception,
were Bachelors.
But this was its only eccentri-
city. The Committee rightly
thought that they had sacrificed
enough to oddity in excluding
persons who were willing to sub-
scribe to the exchequer of the
Club, but not to its principles.
The principles of the Club mny
be summed up in its axiom that
marriage was a crime against woman for which no pun-
ishment, not even exclusion from the Club, could be suffi-
ciently severe. The conditions of membership were four.
No member must follow a profession involving celibacy. No



2 .THEy^ELJEATES' CLUB

member must have ever had a disappointment in love.
No member must be under thirty. No duly-elected mem-
ber must use a latch-key.

It was incumbent upon all candidates to deposit with the
Secretary two independent certificates of non-marriage, each
signed by a householder (married) who had known the
candidate from his cradle ; and, furthermore, to make oath
that they held the marriages of other men, and especially of
their fathers, to be failures. The respectable married house-
holder had to fill up a printed blue form, containing the fol-
lowing six questions : —

1. What is the full name of the candidate?

2. What is his age ?

3. How long have you known him?

4. Has there ever been any matrimony, or tendency to
matrimony, in his family?

5. Has he ever had a disappointment in love?

6. Is his celibacy compulsory?

No. 3 was rather a trap, as by a simple comparison of the
replies to it and to No. 2, the Secretary could ascertain
whether the certifier had really known the candidate from
the cradle. Some babies are so precocious that one cannot
be too careful.

In the early editions of the Celibate Catechism, which
were preserved in the annals of the Club, No. 5 ran simply,
" Has he ever been married ? " But the inadequacy of this
was early perceived. Though a candidate had never com-
mitted matrimony, he might have committed himself in
other ways to the matrimonial heresy. " Has he ever been
in love ? " was tried and found even less comprehensive,
plausible as it looked at first sight. A negative answer, it
was perceived, by no means excluded the possibility of the
candidate having married any number of times and women,



BELIEFS AND BY-LAWS 3

whether in Oriental simultaneity or in Occidental sequence.
The form finally chosen, " Has he ever had a disappoint-
ment in love ? " was thought to cover every possible case,
whether of incipient or developed matrimony in the candi-
date's past. If a man had loved but had not married, the
disappointment in love was obvious. If he had loved and
had married, the disappointment in love was more obvious
still. Thus it will be seen that the Bachelors spared no
trouble to confine the privileges of the Club to gentlemen
who had a clean record, and whose escutcheon was free
from the suspicion of their having ever had honourable in-
tentions towards any woman whatsoever. The sixth ques-
tion furthermore ensured that they were Bachelors out of
pure love. Priests, junior bank-clerks, and others are some-
times required to remain single, and in such celibacy there
is obviously no virtue.

As for the provision against the use of latch-keys, every
member had to give his word of honour that, in the event of
his refusing to go home till morning, he would always on
arrival knock or ring, or do both, if so requested by the
device on the door-post. The reason for fixing the age of
Bachelorhood, in the esoteric sense, at thirty was based upon
the scientific fact that celibacy in earlier years is too com-
mon to be the touchstone of an elevated soul. It had been
originally determined to frame a condition to exclude those
who had ever taken part in the marriage-ceremony, but on
reflection it was decided not to keep the best men out of the
Club, nor to fail in respect for the Cloth.

Should the various documents, oaths, and assurances be
satisfactory, a matter on which the Secretary reported before
a General Court of members, the candidate was permit-
ted to be seconded for election. No member was ever
" proposed," as the word was held too redolent of evil



4 THE CELIBATES' CLUB

associations. As soon as a candidate was seconded, he paid
his entrance fee and his annual subscription, and became
entitled temporarily to the privileges of the Club, including
a vote. As the presence of one white ball amid the black
was held to constitute sufficient desire on the part of the Club
for the new recruit, the candidate was generally elected.

Connected with the Club was a small Benefit-Society. By
paying a trifle extra with their monthly subscription, mem-
bers could insure their single lives. The treasurer and actu-
ary, Moses Fitz- Williams, whose second cousin had been a
senior optime, had drawn up tables showing the average
duration of the male single life ; but as the ordinary agamo-
biological statistics were considerably modified by the supe-
rior single vitality of the members, the sum assured to be
paid on marriage was very large in proportion to the instal-
ments. Thus the unfortunate wife of a departed bachelor
received a very pretty penny in compensation. In practice
the scheme did not work well. Just as some heavily insured
husbands generously die for the benefit of their widows, so
one or two Bachelors quixotically married for the benefit of
their wives. It did not happen often, for such generosity is
rare ; but it was a difficulty. The very first night I visited
the Club, Felix O'Roherty had a motion on the paper
recommending the invalidation of the policy in cases of
wilful matrimony, just as suicide rendered ordinary life-
assurance null and void. Out of respect for O'Roherty it
was referred to the Executive Committee, and so it passed
decently into oblivion. I may as well mention here that the
rules regulating the admission of visitors were two, and two
only : —

1. No married gentleman admitted.

2. No unmarried lady admitted.



BELIEFS AND BY-LAWS 5

It was plain that if married men were admitted, the virgin
purity of the atmosphere and its freedom from the reeks of
domesticity would be threatened, while if unmarried ladies
were allowed access to the symposia, the single-mindedness
of the members might be impugned, and their attentions
misconstrued into intentions. Of course the advisability of
admitting ladies was never for a moment in question. It
was universally felt that to isolate themselves from the society
of woman was the surest means of slirouding her in a halo ;
just as, on the other hand, free communion with her was the
safest prophylactic against affection. Nevertheless, in spite
of the exclusion of their husbands ladies rarely availed them-
selves of the opportunity of visiting that unknown animal, the
Bachelor, in his native haunts.

To distinguish the waiters from the members, who many
a morning turned up in evening dress, it was insisted upon
that they should belong to the lower caste of married men.
The head-waiter owed his supremacy over the rest of the
staff to having served a term of years for bigamy, though,
on the other hand, the under-waiter had the consolation of
feeling that he was nearer to the bachelor caste than his
superior. The steward was a dusky Indian who had married
at the age of three.

The apartments of the Club were situated in Leicester
Square, so that the Alhambra and the Empire music-halls
were within easy walk, at least during the early part of the
evening. When conversation languished at the Club for
scarcity of members, the few faithful Bachelors frequently
repaired in a body to these temples of the ballet to save
the gas and the fires, only going back to the Club that
night if they picked up sufficient members at the temples
to make it worth while. In many cases the fortunate
waiters (who were expected to sleep on the building, and



6 THE CELIBATES' CLUB

did so at every opportunity) had the Club to themselves
for hours together — although these hours of idleness were
usually small.

The premises were neither palatial nor inadequate. They
consisted of two rooms, communicating with each other by
rather loud remarks. The one you entered first, if you had
been careful to ascend two flights of stairs instead of one,
was the smoking-room ; but the members always smoked
in the other and smaller room, because a pipe was more of
a luxury there on account of the placard proclaiming " No
smoking allowed."

As all the Bachelors were members of the Anti- Anti-
Tobacco League, and were never without a pipe or cigar in
their mouths, except when brushing their teeth of a morning,
and as the cosy little room also contained the bar, it came
about that the better half of the Club was always deserted
by the members — as was perhaps only consistent.

It was, however, generally occupied by the waiters, who
retired there not to be in the way when members were get-
ting their drinks from the bar. This was rather hard upon
the poor married fellows on account of the misogamous
texts with which the walls of the room were hung. Fortu-
nately custom dulls the edge of environment ; else the revised
Decalogue, in which " Thou shalt not marry " replaced the
more conventional form of the Seventh Commandment,
might have procured them incessant conscience-ache. In
time they bore with equanimity the most hateful aphorisms ;
and occasionally dusted them. These dogmas were the
work of the secretary, Mandeville Brown. Here are the
worst of them : — " There is nothing half so stveet in life as
the aivaketiing from Love's young dreamt "Marriage is ego-
tism on a sociable; bachelorhood altruism on a bicycled
" At seventeen a woman's heart is affected, at tiventy-seven



BELIEFS AND BY-LAWS 7

he)- affection.'''' "Merit rnakes the man and ' Worth ^ the
7vomany " Alan proposes and woman poses" " Love is
the only excuse for tnarriage ; and it is not an excuse that
will wash or wear well.'" " You can give your heart to a
zvomanfor life, but ivho can guarantee that she will not lose
a ? " " The truest chivalry to the woman who loves you is to
leave her a spinster.''^ "A love-marriage is a contradiction in
tertns." " Marriage is a sacramcfit of souls and a profession
for women" " Good conduct may lessen the term of other
life-sentences, but bad cotiduct is the only curtailer of mar-
riage.'''' " Marriage is a man-trap." " There are three
things which every good wife detests in her secret heart —
tobacco, a faithful income-tax return', and her husband."
" The only true love is love at first sight; second sight dispels
it." ^' Love cannot be bought or sold ; traffic requires reali-
ties." "Marriages are made in heaven ; but this brand is
not exported." " Genius should only marry genius ; and no
7voman is a genius." " Marriage is as fatal to the higher
life as the higher life is fatal to marriage."

By the very conditions of the Higher Bachelorhood few
of these articles of faith could have been the legitimate off-
spring of experience. Hence the veneration in which they
were held by the sect. They were sacred and beyond in-
quiry : a precious heirloom to be handed down from Bache-
lor to somebody else's son in holy apostolic succession.
Another mural ornament deserves mention. It was a sort
of fresco, consisting of a great black-edged oval, on either
side of which flew allegorical figures of Diana and Tolstoi,
weeping ; at the head was inscribed in sombre letters the
words " Here lied," which surmounted the names of the
married and gone apostates. A small proportion of the space
was filled ; for the Club had naturally been a little unset-
tled in its origin. Now, however, that it had steadied



8 THE CELIBATES' CLUB

itself we felt sure that it would maintain its equilibrium, and
that the gaps would be left for ever gaping.

There were only twelve Bachelors. The Club was fool-
ishly superstitious, and dreaded the fatal presage of matri-
mony if ever thirteen of the members should be present at
once. Limiting their number to twelve effectually blocked
this possibility.

I need not say that these twelve men (or eleven, to affect
modesty) were considerably above the average in intellect.
That is implied in the fact of their membership. When I
joined the Club (which was on the 31st of December, some
six months or so after its formation), it was constituted as
follows : —

Andrew M'Gullicuddy, Founder and President.

Moses Fitz-Williams, Treastcrer.

Mandeville Brown, Hon. Sec.

These three formed the committee. The others were —

Osmund Bethel, Israfel Mondego,

Eliot Dickray, Henry Robinson,

Joseph Fogson, M.D., B.Sc, Felix O'Ruherty,

Oliver Green, Caleb Twinkletop,

and, last but not least, myself, Paul Pry. Of these self-
chosen spirits, several had won celebrity, or lost it, in litera-
ture, science, or art. Most of those who had done neither
were trying to. We were all full of humour — good and
bad ; for when the wine was in the wit was out and could
not be restrained. Though some of us were poor, and two
of us were old, the majority were well-to-do and in their
prime to boot. As a rule our hearts were light and our
pockets heavy, and we took no care for the morrow beyond
staying up for it. The New Year dawned upon no merrier
dozen than that which quaffed the cup of good-fellowship
and puffed the pipe of peace, and vowed eternal friendship
and celibacy in those dear old rooms in Leicester Square.



BELIEFS AND BY-LAWS 9

Strange to say, I owed my chance of election to the duo-
decimal system which prevailed at the Club, for it indirectly
opened the door to the ejection of Willoughby Jones, into
whose shoes I stepped. Poor Willoughby ! You may read
of his crime in the matrimonial columns of the Daily Wire;
but what drove him to it has never before picked its way
into print.

Willoughby Jones had got the idea that if twelve good
men and true could be packed into a box, a room was quite
enough for a Bachelors' dozen. So he seconded a motion
that the large room be sublet, and the staff of waiters and
the subscription be reduced by one-half. Those who were
present have told me, individually and in confidence, that
they will never forget the indignation with which this seconda-
tion was received by the others ; though, speaking for them-
selves, it seemed eminently reasonable. They were not,
however, the men to go against the sentiment of the majority,
and declared hotly that the dignity of the Club required at
least two rooms to spread itself over. Besides, as the only
way to the inner room lay through the outer, it was felt that,
when the tenant moved in, grave complications might ensue,
especially if he were domesticated or a musician. Poor
Willoughby tried hard to argue that if the tenant were a
musician, he would probably be an Italian, so that there
would be no necessity for him to practise his revolutionary
music at home ; but he had a weak case. As for lowering
the subscriptions, the Bachelors unanimously thought the
others thought such an idea could only occur to a low-
minded fellow, who might be expected to turn recreant some
day ; and they did not hesitate to express one another's
opinions. The fiery cross-eyed Moses Fitz-Williams openly
taxed Willoughby with flabby convictions ; whereupon the
unfortunate young man lost his head and defied them all,



TO THE CELIBATES' CLUB

and confessed that he had cherished the grand passion all
along, and was looking about in his spare hours for a woman
to fit it on to. It was a scene to be remembered, and the
atmosphere was tense with emotion. Willoughby Jones
stood with his curly head thrown back in the attitude of
Ajax defying the telegraph wires; or an early Christian
Father (if you can call a Bachelor a Christian Father) in-
viting the Lions to breakfast. For a moment the members
were paralysed. It was as if a Government bomb-shell had
fallen at their feet and then exploded. Being Bachelors,
they were not used to being defied and having their sacred
emotions trampled upon. They opened their mouths, but
nothing issued from their lips, except their pipes, which fell
unheeded on the floor. At last a member was sent to fetch
the President, who was unfortunately absent in the hour of
crisis. After a long and fruitless search, it struck the envoy
that M'Gullicuddy might be at home ; where indeed he was,
and in his beauty sleep. But he rose to the occasion and
drove to the Club ; where he at once prescribed marriage
or the payment of the arrears of Willoughby 's subscription.
Willoughby's eye was seen to hght up, as though it were a
member in the room where smoking was not allowed, but
he said nothing except that anything was preferable to being
out of debt. When it was too late, the Bachelors remem-
bered that he was heavily insured. Later in the day, about
9 A.M. to be precise, a lady was hunted up by the accommo-
dating head-waiter. It was the lady who had denounced
him for marrying another lady before her, and had thus
procured him five years of state-supported celibacy. Against
her he had long cherished an unreasonable grudge. Every-
thing comes to him who waits, so the head-waiter was at
last rewarded by seeing his widow, by a former marriage,
married off to the owner of the unattached grand passion.



BELIEFS AND BY-LAWS



When the curly locks he had thrown back were entirely a
memory, Willoughby pleaded hard to be allowed to rejoin
the Club ; but the rules were inexorable. He, however,
found salvation by a side-door ; for, the by-laws admitting




married men as waiters, Willoughby donned his dress suit
and installed himself in the outer chamber, where, as nobody
ever interfered with him, and he was never called upon to
execute an order, he grew in time to be indistinguishable
from the other waiters, and the members forgot that he had



12 THE CELIBATES' CLUB

ever occupied the social position of a Bachelor. He soon
got reconciled to seeing his name under the funereal " Here
lied," and as the Club hours were from sunrise to sunset
and vice versa, he settled the assurance money upon the
head-waiter's first widow, and was regular and punctual in
the discharge of his Club duties, highly satisfied at retaining a
position in the Bachelors' Club and cheerfully continuing to
neglect his subscription in Heu of salary. But from that
day to this no member of the Bachelors' Club has ever
cherished the grand passion, whether for woman in the
abstract or ladies in the concrete.
Which is a record to be proud of.



CHAPTER I

THE SECOND TICKET

There was always something about me which invited confi-
dence. It was my tongue. When I saw a Bachelor (the
capital " B " always denotes the esoteric Bachelor) walking
about with a wobegone air, or a new necktie, or taking his
drinks irregularly, I made it a point to sympathise with him.
It is only thus that I can account for the fact that I was the
solitary recipient of the confidences of nearly every member
in turn. Osmund Bethel once said that Paul Pry was the
dustbin for the ashes of everybody's past. But then Osmund
always affected cheap epigram, and even that at other people's
expense. But let me not speak ill of him. He is beyond our
censure now.

Little Bethel they called him at the Club ; not because he
ever had any Methodism in his madness, but because they
did not like to set themselves up against the inevitable.
Little Bethel was a tall, handsome fellow, with a mass of
tawny hair and a pair of sunny eyes. He carried his head
high, and a Malacca cane, but that was before the days of
his prosperity. No happier journaHst breathed or lied in
England than Little Bethel till the day when SlateroUer, the
dramatic critic of the Whirlpool, died suddenly at a matinee
of a new play, and the editor called Osmund into the sanctum,
and asked him if he would care for the reversion of the post.
Osmund's heart gave a great jump. He had hitherto been
a mere reporter, whose duties were to attend company meet-
ings and review ethical treatises, but he always knew he was

13



14 THE CELIBATES' CLUB

cut out for a dramatic critic, because of his contempt for
Slateroller and his reluctance to struggle for a seat at the
pit-door. It was true that on the only occasion he had
understudied Slateroller, he had shown such unstudied an-
tipathy to SlateroUer's past record, that the poor man had
to spend the next day in writing letters of apology and expla-
nation to his friends, and that he, Osmund, was sent igno-
miniously back to his ethical treatises. But there must have
been something in that article — else, why should the editor
have sent for him now ?

Osmund went to his apartment that night in a hansom,
and gave his landlady notice. His heart swelled with joyous