"That's only a chess-club. I mean a regular club."

"One of the swell ones at the West End?" said Cradell, almost lost in
admiration at the ambition of his friend.

"I shouldn't want it to be particularly swell. If a man isn't a
swell, I don't see what he gets by going among those who are. But
it is so uncommon slow at Mother Roper's." Now Mrs Roper was a
respectable lady, who kept a boarding-house in Burton Crescent, and
to whom Mrs Eames had been strongly recommended when she was desirous
of finding a specially safe domicile for her son. For the first year
of his life in London John Eames had lived alone in lodgings; but
that had resulted in discomfort, solitude, and, alas! in some amount
of debt, which had come heavily on the poor widow. Now, for the
second year, some safer mode of life was necessary. She had learned
that Mrs Cradell, the widow of a barrister, who had also succeeded in
getting her son into the Income-tax Office, had placed him in charge
of Mrs Roper; and she, with many injunctions to that motherly woman,
submitted her own boy to the same custody.

"And about going to church?" Mrs Eames had said to Mrs Roper.

"I don't suppose I can look after that, ma'am," Mrs Roper had
answered, conscientiously. "Young gentlemen choose mostly their own
churches."

"But they do go?" asked the mother, very anxious in her heart as to
this new life in which her boy was to be left to follow in so many
things the guidance of his own lights.