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THE LAMPS December<br />
at which the report was read and the committee ordered to proceed<br />
with the prompt expenditure of $650 derived from $44.50<br />
in the bank, with the result that $1,300 was spent and the Club<br />
properties were hauled over in a one-horse express waggon—in<br />
one trip. By Sept. 9th, 1910, the premises were ready for the first<br />
dinner. That morning the Secretary carried on his shoulder<br />
along King Street the linoleum still in use on the stair landing.<br />
We managed to get electric light connection at 5.30 by using<br />
poles illegally, and gas turned on at six. The sole decorations<br />
were two small pictures by Archibald Browne where the fireplace<br />
now stands. Two chief guests of the occasion were Sir<br />
Edmund Walker and Sir William Mulock, both of whom became<br />
members. Later in the month the first luncheon was held when<br />
thirteen men presented tickets made by one Mitchell from cigarette<br />
linings. The real Treasurer now was Defries, whom the<br />
writer had first met in the Arcade when Defries confessed that he<br />
owed the Club for two dinners. The Christmas dinner of 1910<br />
saw the first appearance of a men's chorus under the able baton of<br />
Coombs, the celebration of a Christmas Tree with Bell-Smith as<br />
Santa Claus and the performance of an impromptu orchestra consisting<br />
of several leading musicians playing toy instruments,<br />
conducted inimitably by Pigott.<br />
We soon developed away from the talking era into all sorts<br />
of shows, choric, mimetic, mysteric, toy-symphonic, bardic,<br />
pagan and pastoral, including a series of very uncommon and<br />
much appreciated little dramas under the direction of Roy M.<br />
Mitchell. In 1911 we got the great fireplace, the enthusiasm for<br />
which marked the highest point of Club esprit and the construction<br />
of which was undertaken by Mr. Eden Smith. The spirit<br />
of mutual discovery which culminated in that found an almost<br />
simultaneous expression in the Club paper, the first issue of<br />
which, a mere leaflet, was published in the old King Street<br />
premises, and in the auction sale of pictures donated by painter<br />
members to the amount of $827. Immediately before the war<br />
we began to accumulate financial surpluses and to evolve a constitution.<br />
The Year Book of that time signalized our only<br />
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