Mr Bailey, on this Midsummer Day, experienced unwonted difficulty in remembering where he was and what was demanded of him. Club Day was an occasion which he, no less than the humbler members, anticipated with eagerness. To be ‘Mr Secretary,’ to exercise unchallenged authority, to be deferred to and made much of, to receive confidences and give sententious counsel, these things gratified alike his vanity and his affection. More than ever now, he was a friendly soul; the years had mellowed him, ripening such humour as he had and weaning him from the worst of his nonsense. He was less greedy of notice, less expectant; but he was no less lonely. Indeed he was more than ever lonely in spite of the crowd of memories that companioned him. The sight or thought of beauty—and now all things external were apt to be translated into thought—had all its old power to trouble him with a vague hunger; but he no longer entertained any worldly ambition, and no longer regretted the chances—disasters, as he had once called them—that had made an innkeeper out of a smart self-important young schoolmaster. Marden Fee, to which he came as a foreigner, had accepted him at last. These villagers trusted him and liked him; looked up to him as an educated man, yet counted him one of themselves; and nowadays, fully realising his good fortune, he found this friendliness a matter not only for gratitude but even for surprise. So Club Day, when old friends, originally of the Fee, flocked in from all parts of the country (some from as far as Medlock, a good twelve miles), meant much to Mr Bailey. He took a paternal interest in these folks, making it his business to know where they lived and how they lived, whether their wives were kindly or shrewish, the number of their children, and the date of their last illness. It pleased him mightily, after years of self-induced difficulty, to find himself at ease with these men and of use to them. When Charley Grampound, an octogenarian, came to him from Dyking with complaints about old Mrs Grampound—‘My wife be sech a tarrible tarker, Mus Bailey, I doon’t lay wud ’er nowdays’—he was by no means at a loss. And when today, after dinner, his own club wardens, Mykelborne and Sweet, being (as the phrase goes) much concerned in drink, came near to bloodshed in a dispute about the true remedy for the ague, it was Mr Bailey who put the matter right and prevented a brawl that would certainly have become a riot. ‘Now tis this way, Mus Bailey. Old Johnny Ague, he’ve bin a-runnen his fingers down my back, and that be for why I carry this liddle nutshell round my neck. I’ve got a spider curled up in he, and old Johnny daun’t like spiders, tellee. Now this gurt booby Dick Mykelborne, he do say a man must swaller the spider. Roll un up in a caabweb and swaller un like he was a pill, says Dick Mykelborne, him and his old Postle Paul.’ Giving judgement, Mr Bailey ruled that both methods were good, each in its own way, arguing very plausibly that while some kinds of spider might prove curative taken as a pill (gratification of Mykelborne), others, less edible on account of their size and general aspect, had best be worn dangling, as a preventive charm (‘Whaddid I tellee, Dick!’ cried Sweet, in genial triumph.) And finally he thanked God that there were no spiders of any kind in his beer today, and if the clubfellows would do him the kindness to fill their glasses again he would venture to propose to them another toast: ‘Our trusty wardens, gentlemen. Those two devoted officers of this club who watch your old secretary day and night to secure that he do not abscond with the funds. Which same funds, gentlemen, are in safe keeping, and ready to be drawn upon for the benefit and assistance of any clubfellow that stands or shall stand in need of pecuniary aid. Sickness truly vouched for, injuries honestly come by, these we need not fear to confess, gentlemen. Our club is behind us. But if any man here choose to break his head in a quarrel, tis with his own money he must mend it, for not a groat shall he get from the funds while Erasmus Bailey is your secretary. Our trusty wardens, gentlemen—we’ll drink to ’em!’