Mr. Prohack

THE YACHT

I

Mr. Prohack was lounging over his breakfast in the original old house in the Square behind Hyde Park. He came to be there because that same house had been his wedding present to Sissie, who now occupied it with her spouse, and because the n.o.ble mansion in Manchester Square was being re-decorated (under compulsion of some clause in the antique lease) and Eve had invited him to leave the affair entirely to her. In the few months since Charlie's great crisis, all things conspired together to prove once more to Mr. Prohack that calamities expected never arrive.

Even the British Empire had continued to cohere, and revolution seemed to be further off than ever before. The greatest menace to his peace of mind, the League of all the Arts, had of course quietly ceased to exist; but it had established Eve as a hostess. And Eve as a hostess had gradually given up boring herself and her husband by large and stiff parties, and they had gone back to entertaining none but well-established and intimate friends with the maximum of informality as of old,--to such an extent that occasionally in the vast and gorgeous dining-room of the n.o.ble mansion Eve would have the roast planted on the table and would carve it herself, also as of old; Brool did not seem to mind.

Mr. Prohack had bought the lease of the n.o.ble mansion, with all the contents thereof, merely because this appeared to be the easiest thing to do. He had not been forced to change his manner of life; far from it.

Owing to a happy vicissitude in the story of the R.R. Corporation Charlie had called upon his father for only a very small portion of the offered one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, and had even repaid that within a few weeks. Matters had thereafter come to such a pa.s.s with Charlie that he had reached the pages of _The Daily Picture_, and was reputed to be arousing the jealousy of youthful millionaires in the United States; also the figure which he paid weekly for rent of his offices in the Grand Babylon Hotel was an item of common knowledge in the best clubs and not to know it was to be behind the times in current information. No member of his family now ventured to offer advice to Charlie, who still, however, looked astonis.h.i.+ngly like the old Charlie of motor-bicycle transactions.

The fact is, people do not easily change. Mr. Prohack had seemed to change for a s.p.a.ce, but if indeed any change had occurred in him, he had changed back. Scientific idleness? Turkish baths? Dandyism? All vanished, contemned, forgotten. To think of them merely annoyed him. He did not care what necktie he wore. Even dancing had gone the same way.

The dancing season was over until October, and he knew he would never begin again. He cared not to dance with the middle-aged, and if he danced with the young he felt that he was making a fool of himself.

It had been rather a lark to come and stay for a few days in his old home,--to pa.s.s the sacred door of the conjugal bedroom (closed for ever to him) and mount to Charlie's room, into which Sissie had put the bulk of the furniture from the

Decidedly amusing to sleep in Charlie's old little room! But the romantic sensation had given way to the sensation of the hardness of the bed.

Breakfast achieved, Mr. Prohack wondered what he should do next, for he had nothing to do; he had no worries, and almost no solicitudes; he had successfully adapted himself to his environment. Through the half-open door of the dining-room he heard Sissie and Ozzie. Ozzie was off to the day's business, and Sissie was seeing him out of the house, as Eve used to see Mr. Prohack out. Ozzie, by reason of a wedding present of ten thousand pounds given in defiance of Sissie's theories, and with the help of his own savings, was an important fellow now in the theatrical world, having attained a partners.h.i.+p with the Napoleon of the stage.

"You'd no business to send for the doctor without telling me," Sissie was saying in her harsh tone. "What do I want with a doctor?"

"I thought it would be for the best, dear," came Ozzie's lisping reply.

"Well, it won't, my boy."

The door banged.

"Eve never saw me off like that," Mr. Prohack reflected.

Sissie entered the room, some letters in her hand. She was exceedingly attractive, matron-like, interesting--but formidable.

Said Mr. Prohack, glancing up at her:

"It is the duty of the man to protect and the woman to charm--and I don't care who knows it."

"What on earth do you mean, dad?"

"I mean that it is the duty of the man to protect and the woman to _charm_."

Sissie flushed.

"Ozzie and I understand each other, but you don't," said she, and made a delicious rude face. "Carthew's brought these letters and he's waiting for orders about the car." She departed.

Among the few letters was one from Softly Bishop, dated Rangoon. It was full of the world-tour. "We had a success at Calcutta that really does baffle description," it said.

"'We!'" commented Mr. Prohack. There was a postscript: "By the way, I've only just learnt that it was your son who was buying those Royal Rubber shares. I do hope he was not inconvenienced. I need not say that if I had had the slightest idea who was standing the racket I should have waived--" And so on.

"Would you!" commented Mr. Prohack. "I see you doing it. And what's more I bet you only wrote the letter for the sake of the postscript. Your tour is not a striking success, and you'll be wanting to do business with me when you come back, but you won't do it.... And here I am lecturing Sissie about hardness!"

He rang the bell and told a servant who was a perfect stranger to him to tell Carthew that he should not want the car.

"May Carthew speak to you, sir?" said the servant returning.

"Carthew may," said he, and the servant thought what an odd gentleman Mr. Prohack was.

"Well, Carthew," said he, when the chauffeur, perturbed, entered the room. "This is quite like old times, isn't it? Sit down and have a cigarette. What's wrong?"

"Well, sir," replied Carthew, after he had lighted the cigarette and ejected a flake of tobacco into the hearth. "There may be something wrong or there mayn't, if you understand what I mean. But I'm thinking of getting married."

"Oh! But what about that wife of yours?"

"Oh! Her! She's dead, all right. I never said anything, feeling as it might be ashamed of her."

"But I thought you'd done with women!"

"So did I, sir. But the question always is, Have women done with you? I was helping her to lift pictures down yesterday, and she was standing on a chair. And something came over me. And there you are before you know where you are, sir, if you understand what I mean."

"Perfectly, Carthew. But who is it?"

"Machin, sir. To cut a long story short, sir, I'd been thinking about her for the better part of some time, because of the boy, sir, because of the boy. She likes him. If it hadn't been for the boy--"

"Careful, Carthew!"

"Well, perhaps you're right, sir. She'd have copped me anyway."

"I congratulate you, Carthew. You've been copped by the best parlourmaid in London."

"Thank you, sir. I think I'll be getting along, sir."

"Have you told Mrs. Prohack?"

"I thought I'd best leave that to Machin, sir."

Mr. Prohack waved a hand, thoughtful. He heard Carthew leave. He heard Dr. Veiga arrive, and then he heard Dr. Veiga leaving, and rushed to the dining-room door.

"Veiga! A moment. Come in. Everything all right?"

"Of course. Absolutely normal. But you know what these young husbands are. I can't stop unless you're really ill, my friend."

"I'm worse than really ill," said Mr. Prohack, shutting the door. "I'm really bored. I'm surrounded by the most interesting phenomena and I'm really bored. I've taken to heart all your advice and I'm really bored.

So there!"

The agreeable, untidy, unprofessional Portuguese quack twinkled at him, and then said in his thick, southern, highly un-English voice: "The remedy may be worse than the disease. You are bored because you have no worries, my friend. I will give you advice. Go back to your Treasury."

"I cannot," said Mr. Prohack. "I've resigned. I found out that my friend Hunter was expecting promotion in my place."

"Ah, well!" replied Dr. Veiga with strange sardonic indifference. "If you will sacrifice yourself to your friends you must take the consequences like a man. I will talk to you some other time, when I've got nothing better to do. I am very busy, telling people what they already know." And he went.

A minute later Charlie arrived in a car suitable to his grandeur.