CHAPTER IV
EVE'S HEADACHE
I
That afternoon Mr. Prohack just got back to his bank before closingtime. He had negligently declined to comprehend a very discreet hintfrom Mr. Percy Smathe that if he desired ready money he could haveit--in bulk. Nevertheless he did desire to feel more money than usual inhis pocket, and he satisfied this desire at the bank, where theSeptember quarter of his annual salary lay almost intact. His bank wasnear Hanover Square, a situation inconvenient for him, but he had chosenthat particular branch because its manager happened to be a friend ofhis. The Prohack account did no good to the manager personally, and onlyinfinitesimal good to the vast corporation of which the branch-managerwas the well-dressed, well-spoken serf. The corporation was a sort ofsponge prodigiously absorbent but incapable of being squeezed. Themanager could not be of the slightest use to Mr. Prohack in a financialcrisis, for the reason that he was empowered to give no accommodationwhatever without the consent of the head office. Still, Mr. Prohack,being a vigorous sentimentalist, as all truly wise men are, liked tobank with a friend. On the present occasion he saw the branch-manager,Insott by name, explained that he wanted some advice, and made anappointment to meet the latter at the latter's club, the Oriental, atsix-thirty.
Thereupon he returned to the Treasury, and from mere high fantasy spreadthe interesting news that he had broken a back tooth at lunch and hadhad to visit his dentist at Putney. His colleague, Hunter, remarked tohim that he seemed strangely gay for a man with a broken tooth, and Mr.Prohack answered that a philosopher always had resources of fortitudewithin himself. He then winked--a phenomenon hitherto unknown at theTreasury. He stayed so late at his office that he made the acquaintanceof two charwomen, whom he courteously chaffed. He was defeated in thesubsequent encounter, and acknowledged the fact by two half-crowns.
At the Oriental Club he told Insott that he might soon have some moneyto invest; and he was startled and saddened to discover that Insott knewalmost nothing about exciting investments, or about anything at all,except the rigours of tube travel to Golder's Green. Insott had sunkinto a deplorable groove. When, confidential, Insott told him the salaryof a branch-manager of a vast corporation near Hanover Square, andincidentally mentioned that a bank-clerk might not marry without theconsent in writing of the vast corporation, Mr. Prohack understood andpardoned the deep, deplorable groove. Insott could afford a club simplybecause his father, the once-celebrated authority on Japanese armour,had left him a hundred and fifty a year. Compared to the ruck ofbranch-managers Insott was a free and easy plutocrat.
As he departed from the Oriental Mr. Prohack sighed: "Poor Insott!" Asturdy and even exultant cheerfulness was, however, steadily growing inhim. Poor Insott, unaware that he had been talking to a man with anassured income of ten thousand pounds a year, had unconsciously helpedthat man to realise the miracle of his own good fortune.
Mr. Prohack's route home lay through a big residential square or so andalong residential streets of the first quality. All the houses were big,and they seemed bigger in the faint October mist. It was the hour afterlighting up and before the drawing of blinds and curtains. Mr. Prohackhad glimpses of enormous and magnificent interiors,--some right in thesky, some on the ground--with carved ceilings, rich candelabra, heavilyframed pictures, mighty furniture, statuary, and superb and nonchalantmenials engaged in the pleasant task of shutting away those interiorsfrom the vulgar gaze. The spectacle continued furlong upon furlong,monotonously. There was no end to the succession of palaces of thewealthy. Then it would be interrupted while Mr. Prohack crossed a mainthoroughfare, where scores of young women struggled against a few menfor places in glittering motor-buses that were already packed withsuccessful fighters for room in them. And then it would be resumed againin its majesty.
The sight of the street-travellers took Mr. Prohack's mind back toInsott. He felt a passionate sympathy for the Insotts of the world, andalso for the Prohacks of six hours earlier. Once Mr. Prohack had been ineasier circumstances; but those circumstances, thanks to the ambitionsof statesmen and generals, and to the simplicity of publics, hadgradually changed from easy to distressed. He saw with terribleclearness from what fate the Angmering miracle had saved him and his. Hewanted to reconstruct society in the interest of those to whom nomiracle had happened. He wanted to do away with all excessive wealth;and by "excessive" he meant any degree of wealth beyond what would beneeded for the perfect comfort of himself, Mr. Prohack,--a reasonableman if ever there was one! Ought he not to devote his fortune to thegreat cause of reconstructing society? Could he enjoy his fortune whilesociety remain unreconstructed? Well, societies were not to bereconstructed by the devoting of fortunes to the work. Moreover, if hefollowed such an extreme course he would be regarded as a crank, and hecould not have borne to be regarded as a crank. He detested cranks morethan murderers or even profiteers. As for enjoying his fortune inpresent circumstances, he thought that he might succeed in doing so, andthat anyhow it was his duty to try. He was regrettably inconsistent.