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COLLISION - Mr. Prohack
| | Page 61 of 230 | | |
"But, my dear fellow," said F.F. with his melancholy ardent glance, when Mr. Prohack had replied suitably to his opening question. "I'd no idea you'd been unwell. I hope it isn't what's called a breakdown."
"Oh, no!" Mr. Prohack laughed nervously. "But you know what doctors are. A little rest has been prescribed."
F.F. gazed at him softly compassionate, as if to indicate that nothing but trouble could be expected under the present political regime. They examined the tape together.
"Things can't go on much longer like this," observed F.F. comprehensively, in front of the morning's messages from the capitals of the world.
"Still," said Mr. Prohack, "we've won the war, haven't we?"
"I suppose we have," said F.F. and sighed.
Mr. Prohack felt that he had no more time for preliminaries, and in order to cut them short started some ingenious but quite inexcusable lying.
"You didn't chance to see old Paul Spinner going out as you came in?"
"No," answered F.F. "Why?"
"Nothing. Only a man in the morning-room was wanting to know if he was still in the Club, and I told him I'd see."
"I hear," said F.F. after a moment, and in a lower voice, "I hear he's getting up some big new oil scheme."
"Ah!" murmured Mr. Prohack, delighted at so favourable a coincidence, with a wonderful imitation of casualness. "And what may that be?"
"Nobody knows. Some people would give a good deal to know. But if I'm any judge of my Spinner they won't know till he's licked off all the cream. It's marvellous to me how Spinner and his sort can keep on devoting themselves to the old ambitions while the world's breaking up. Marvellous!"
"Money, you mean?"
"Personal aggrandisement."
"Well," answered Mr. Prohack, with a judicial, detached air. "I've always found Spinner a very decent agreeable chap."
"Oh, yes! Agreed! Agreed! They're all too confoundedly agreeable for anything, all that lot are."
"But surely he's honest?"
"Quite. As straight a man as ever breathed, especially according to his own lights. All his enterprises are absolutely what is known as 'sound.' They all make rich people richer, and in particular they make _him_ richer, though I bet even he's been feeling the pinch lately. They all have."
"Still, I expect old Spinner desires the welfare of the country just as much as any one else. It's not all money with him."
"No. But did you ever know Spinner touch anything that didn't mean money in the first place? I never did. What he and his lot mean by the welfare of the country is the stability of the country _as it is_. They see the necessity for development, improvement in the social scheme. Oh, yes! They see it and admit it. Then they go to church, or they commune with heaven on the golf-course, and their prayer is: 'Give us needed change, O Lord, but not just yet.'"
The pair moved to the morning-room. 
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