Mr. Prohack | Page 6

give up his other
club. He must give it up, if only to keep even with his wife. The
monetary saving would be unimportant, but the act would be
spectacular. And Mr. Prohack perfectly comprehended the value of the
spectacular in existence.
II
He sat down to lunch among half a dozen cronies at one of the larger
tables in a window-embrasure of the vaulted coffee-room with its
precious portrait of that historic clubman, Charles James Fox, and he
ordered himself the cheapest meal that the menu could offer, and
poured himself out a glass of water.
"Same old menu!" remarked savagely Mr. Prohack's great crony, Sir
Paul Spinner, the banker, who suffered from carbuncles and who
always drove over from the city in the middle of the day.
"Here's old Paul grumbling again!" said Sims of Downing Street.
"After all, this is the best club in London."
"It certainly is," said Mr. Prohack, "when it's closed. During the past
four weeks this club has been the most perfect institution on the face of
the earth."
They all laughed. And they began recounting to each other the
unparalleled miseries and indignities which such of them as had
remained in London had had to endure in the clubs that had "extended
their hospitality" to members of the closed club. The catalogue of ills
was terrible. Yes, there was only one club deserving of the name.
"Still," said Sir Paul. "They might give us a rest from prunes and rice."
"This club," said Mr. Prohack, "like all other clubs, is managed by a

committee of Methuselahs who can only digest prunes and rice." And
after a lot more talk about the idiosyncrasies of clubs he said, with a
casual air: "For myself, I belong to too many clubs."
Said Hunter, a fellow official of the Treasury:
"But I thought you only had two clubs, Arthur."
"Only two. But it's one too many. In fact I'm not sure if it isn't two too
many."
"Are you getting disgusted with human nature?" Sims suggested.
"No," said Mr. Prohack. "I'm getting hard up. I've committed the
greatest crime in the world. I've committed poverty. And I feel guilty."
And the truth was that he did feel guilty. He was entirely innocent; he
was a victim; he had left undone nothing that he ought to have done;
but he felt guilty, thus proving that poverty is indeed seriously a crime
and that those who in sardonic jest describe it as a crime are deeper
philosophers than they suppose.
"Never say die," smiled the monocled Mixon, a publisher of scientific
works, and began to inveigh against the Government as an ungrateful
and unscrupulous employer and exploiter of dutiful men in an inferno
of rising prices. But the rest thought Mixon unhappy in his choice of
topic. Hunter of the Treasury said nothing. What was there to say that
would not tend to destroy the true club atmosphere? Even the beloved
Prohack had perhaps failed somewhat in tact. They all understood, they
all mildly sympathised, but they could do no more--particularly in a
miscellaneous assemblage of eight members. No, they felt a certain
constraint; and in a club constraint should be absolutely unknown.
Some of them glanced uneasily about the crowded, chattering room.
III
It was then, that a remarkable coincidence occurred.

"I saw Bishop at Inverness last week," said Sir Paul Spinner to Mr.
Prohack, apropos of nothing whatever. "Seems he's got a big moor this
year in Sutherlandshire. So I suppose he's recovered from his overdose
of shipping shares."
Bishop (Fred Ferrars) was a financier with a cheerful, negligent attitude
towards the insecurities and uncertainties of a speculative existence. He
was also a close friend of Prohack, of Sir Paul, and of several others at
the table, and a member of Prohack's secondary club, though not of his
primary club.
"That's strange," said Mr. Prohack. "I hear he's in London."
"He most positively isn't in London," said Sir Paul. "He's not coming
back until November."
"Then that shows how little the evidence of the senses can be relied
upon," remarked Mr. Prohack gently. "According to the hall-porter he
called here for me a few minutes ago, and he may call again."
The banker grunted. "The deuce he did! Does that mean he's in some
fresh trouble, I wonder?"
At the same moment a page-girl, the smart severity of whose uniform
was mitigated by a pig-tail and a bow of ribbon, approached Mr.
Prohack's chair, and, bending her young head to his ear, delivered to
him with the manner of a bearer of formidable secrets:
"Mr. Bishop to see you, sir."
"There he is!" exclaimed Mr. Prohack. "Now he's bound to want lunch.
Why on earth can't we bring guests in here? Waitress, have the lunch
I've ordered served