{"product_id":"2940013164918","title":"In The Fog","description":"CHAPTER I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Grill is the club most difficult of access in the world. To be\u003cbr\u003eplaced on its rolls distinguishes the new member as greatly as though he\u003cbr\u003ehad received a vacant Garter or had been caricatured in \"Vanity Fair.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMen who belong to the Grill Club never mention that fact. If you were\u003cbr\u003eto ask one of them which clubs he frequents, he will name all save that\u003cbr\u003eparticular one. He is afraid if he told you he belonged to the Grill,\u003cbr\u003ethat it would sound like boasting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Grill Club dates back to the days when Shakespeare's Theatre stood\u003cbr\u003eon the present site of the \"Times\" office. It has a golden Grill which\u003cbr\u003eCharles the Second presented to the Club, and the original manuscript\u003cbr\u003eof \"Tom and Jerry in London,\" which was bequeathed to it by Pierce Egan\u003cbr\u003ehimself. The members, when they write letters at the Club, still use\u003cbr\u003esand to blot the ink.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Grill enjoys the distinction of having blackballed, without\u003cbr\u003epolitical prejudice, a Prime Minister of each party. At the same sitting\u003cbr\u003eat which one of these fell, it elected, on account of his brogue and his\u003cbr\u003ebulls, Quiller, Q. C., who was then a penniless barrister.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Paul Preval, the French artist who came to London by royal command\u003cbr\u003eto paint a portrait of the Prince of Wales, was made an honorary\u003cbr\u003emember--only foreigners may be honorary members--he said, as he signed\u003cbr\u003ehis first wine card, \"I would rather see my name on that, than on a\u003cbr\u003epicture in the Louvre.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt which. Quiller remarked, \"That is a devil of a compliment, because\u003cbr\u003ethe only men who can read their names in the Louvre to-day have been\u003cbr\u003edead fifty years.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the night after the great fog of 1897 there were five members in\u003cbr\u003ethe Club, four of them busy with supper and one reading in front of the\u003cbr\u003efireplace. There is only one room to the Club, and one long table. At\u003cbr\u003ethe far end of the room the fire of the grill glows red, and, when the\u003cbr\u003efat falls, blazes into flame, and at the other there is a broad bow\u003cbr\u003ewindow of diamond panes, which looks down upon the street. The four men\u003cbr\u003eat the table were strangers to each other, but as they picked at the\u003cbr\u003egrilled bones, and sipped their Scotch and soda, they conversed with\u003cbr\u003esuch charming animation that a visitor to the Club, which does\u003cbr\u003enot tolerate visitors, would have counted them as friends of long\u003cbr\u003eacquaintance, certainly not as Englishmen who had met for the first\u003cbr\u003etime, and without the form of an introduction. But it is the etiquette\u003cbr\u003eand tradition of the Grill, that whoever enters it must speak with\u003cbr\u003ewhomever he finds there. It is to enforce this rule that there is but\u003cbr\u003eone long table, and whether there are twenty men at it or two, the\u003cbr\u003ewaiters, supporting the rule, will place them side by side.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor this reason the four strangers at supper were seated together, with\u003cbr\u003ethe candles grouped about them, and the long length of the table cutting\u003cbr\u003ea white path through the outer gloom.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47082298769648,"sku":"2940013164918","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013164918_p0.jpg?v=1763577814","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013164918","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}