tion of the time-honored benefit performance. It was done and Robert G. Ingersoll, who had become a member in 1889, made the opening address. The receipts and the business sense of Greene as Shepherd and Thomas as Boy began to pull the club out of debt. They compromised with our creditors and the membership began to leap. In 1895 it was 272 and when Greene and Thomas stepped down in 1899, after seven years in office, the club had a waiting list for the first time.
Furthermore, it occupied a home of its own. Thomas B. Clarke, the art connoisseur, first suggested that the club buy and build. In 1896 a house at Number 70 West Thirty-sixth Street was purchased with money produced by the public Gambols, remodelled on plans of Stanford White, and occupied in May, 1897. It became a famous chophouse when we crossed Forty-Second street in pursuit of the still shifting theatrical district, but in 1897 Herald Square was the Rialto's heart, just as Twenty-third Street had been when we were in Twenty-sixth Street.
Again it was Thomas who pointed the way to the present club building. The carpets hardly were down in Thirty-sixth Street when he
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