The Disentanglers

The scene was a dusky shabby little room in Ryder Street. To such caves many repair whose days are passed and whose food is consumed in the clubs of the adjacent thoroughfare of cooperative palaces Pall Mall. The furniture was battered and dingy; the sofa on which Logan sprawled had a certain historic interest: it was covered with cloth of horsehair now seldom found by the amateur. A bookcase with glass doors held a crowd of books to which the amateur would at once have flown. They were in 'boards' of faded blue and the paper labels bore alluring names: they were all First Editions of the most desirable kind. The bottles in the liqueur case were antique; a coat of arms not undistinguished was in relief on the silver stoppers. But the liquors in the flasks were humble and conventional. Merton the tenant of the rooms was in a Zingari cricketing coat; he occupied the arm-chair while Logan in evening dress maintained a difficult equilibrium on the slippery sofa. Both men were of an age between twenty-five and twenty-nine both were pleasant to the eye. Merton was if anything under the middle height: fair slim and active. As a freshman he had coxed his College Eight later he rowed Bow in that vessel.