The most popular member of the Autolycus Club was undoubtedly¹ Joseph Loveredge.  Small, chubby², clean-shaven, his somewhat longish, soft, brown hair parted in the middle, strangers fell into the error of assuming him to be younger than he really was.  It is on record that a leading lady novelist—accepting her at her own estimate—irritated by his polite but firm refusal to allow her entrance into his own editorial office without appointment, had once boxed his ears, under the impression that he was his own office-boy.  Guests to the Autolycus Club, on being introduced to him, would give to him kind messages to take home to his father, with whom they remembered having been at school together.  This sort of thing might have annoyed anyone with less sense of humour.  Joseph Loveredge would tell such stories himself, keenly enjoying the jest—was even suspected of inventing some of the more improbable.  Another fact tending to the popularity of Joseph Loveredge among all classes, over and above his amiability⁴, his wit, his genuine kindliness⁵, and his never-failing fund of good stories, was that by care and inclination⁶ he had succeeded in remaining a bachelor.  Many had been the attempts to capture him; nor with the passing of the years had interest in the sport shown any sign of diminution⁷.  Well over the frailties⁸ and distempers so dangerous to youth, of staid and sober habits, with an ever-increasing capital invested in sound securities, together with an ever-increasing income from his pen, with a tastefully furnished house overlooking Regent’s Park, an excellent and devoted¹⁰ cook and house-keeper, and relatives mostly settled in the Colonies, Joseph Loveredge, though inexperienced girls might pass him by with a contemptuous

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