And in the chaos and complexity of those
perpendicular streets anything may dwell or happen, and it is in
one of them, I believe, that the inquirer may find the offices of
the Club of Queer Trades. It may be thought at the first glance
that the name would attract and startle the passer-by, but nothing
attracts or startles in these dim immense hives. The passer-by is
only looking for his own melancholy destination, the Montenegro
Shipping Agency or the London office of the Rutland Sentinel, and
passes through the twilight passages as one passes through the
twilight corridors of a dream. If the Thugs set up a Strangers'
Assassination Company in one of the great buildings in Norfolk
Street, and sent in a mild man in spectacles to answer inquiries,
no inquiries would be made. And the Club of Queer Trades reigns in
a great edifice hidden like a fossil in a mighty cliff of fossils.
The nature of this society, such as we afterwards discovered it to
be, is soon and simply told. It is an eccentric and Bohemian Club,
of which the absolute condition of membership lies in this, that
the candidate must have invented the method by which he earns his
living. It must be an entirely new trade. The exact definition of
this requirement is given in the two principal rules. First, it
must not be a mere application or variation of an existing trade.
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