And in Mr. Percy Smathe’s private room he listened but carelessly to a long legal recital.  Details did not interest him.  He knew he was all right.

CHAPTER IV

EVE’S HEADACHE

I

That afternoon Mr. Prohack just got back to his bank before closing time.  He had negligently declined to comprehend a very discreet hint from Mr. Percy Smathe that if he desired ready money he could have it—­in bulk.  Nevertheless he did desire to feel more money than usual in his pocket, and he satisfied this desire at the bank, where the September quarter of his annual salary lay almost intact.  His bank was near Hanover Square, a situation inconvenient for him, but he had chosen that particular branch because its manager happened to be a friend of his.  The Prohack account did no good to the manager personally, and only infinitesimal good to the vast corporation of which the branch-manager was the well-dressed, well-spoken serf.  The corporation was a sort of sponge prodigiously absorbent but incapable of being squeezed.  The manager could not be of the slightest use to Mr. Prohack in a financial crisis, for the reason that he was empowered to give no accommodation whatever without the consent of the head office.  Still, Mr. Prohack, being a vigorous sentimentalist, as all truly wise men are, liked to bank with a friend.  On the present occasion he saw the branch-manager, Insott by name, explained that he wanted some advice, and made an appointment to meet the latter at the latter’s club, the Oriental, at six-thirty.

Thereupon he returned to the Treasury, and from mere high fantasy spread the interesting news that he had broken a back tooth at lunch and had had to visit his dentist at Putney.  His colleague, Hunter, remarked to him that he seemed strangely gay for a man with a broken tooth, and Mr. Prohack answered that a philosopher always had resources of fortitude within himself.  He then winked—­a phenomenon hitherto unknown at the Treasury.  He stayed so late at his office that he made the acquaintance of two charwomen, whom he courteously chaffed.  He was defeated in the subsequent encounter, and acknowledged the fact by two half-crowns.

At the Oriental Club he told Insott that he might soon have some money to invest; and he was startled and saddened to discover that Insott knew almost nothing about exciting investments, or about anything at all, except the rigours of tube travel to Golder’s Green.  Insott had sunk into a deplorable groove.  When, confidential, Insott told him the salary of a branch-manager of a vast corporation near Hanover Square, and incidentally mentioned that a bank-clerk might not marry without the consent in writing of the vast corporation, Mr. Prohack understood and pardoned the deep, deplorable groove.  Insott could afford a club simply because his father, the once-celebrated authority on Japanese armour, had left him a hundred and fifty a year.  Compared to the ruck of branch-managers Insott was a free and easy plutocrat.