Mr. Prohack

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Mr. Prohack

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Title: Mr. Prohack
Author: E. Arnold Bennett
Release Date: June 29, 2004 [eBook #12773]
Language: English
Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR.
PROHACK***
E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Wilelmina Mallière, and the
Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

MR. PROHACK

BY
ARNOLD BENNETT
Author of "Clayhanger," etc.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I
THE NEW POOR II FROM THE DEAD III THE LAW IV EVE'S
HEADACHE V CHARLIE VI SISSIE VII THE SYMPATHETIC
QUACK VIII SISSIE'S BUSINESS IX COLLISION X THE THEORY
OF IDLENESS XI NEURASTHENIA CURED XII THE PRACTICE
OF IDLENESS XIII FURTHER IDLENESS XIV END OF AN IDLE
DAY XV THE HEAVY FATHER XVI TRANSFER OF MIMI XVII
ROMANCE XVIII A HOMELESS NIGHT XIX THE RECEPTION
XX THE SILENT TOWER XXI EVE'S MARTYRDOM XXII MR.
PROHACK'S TRIUMPH XXIII THE YACHT
CHAPTER I
THE NEW POOR
I
Arthur Charles Prohack came downstairs at eight thirty, as usual, and
found breakfast ready in the empty dining-room. This pleased him,
because there was nothing in life he hated more than to be hurried. For
him, hell was a place of which the inhabitants always had an eye on the
clock and the clock was always further advanced than they had hoped.
The dining-room, simply furnished with reproductions of chaste
Chippendale, and chilled to the uncomfortable low temperature that
hardy Britons pretend to enjoy, formed part of an unassailably correct

house of mid-Victorian style and antiquity; and the house formed part
of an unassailably correct square just behind Hyde Park Gardens.
(Taxi-drivers, when told the name of the square, had to reflect for a
fifth of a second before they could recall its exact situation.)
Mr. Prohack was a fairly tall man, with a big head, big features, and a
beard. His characteristic expression denoted benevolence based on an
ironic realisation of the humanity of human nature. He was forty-six
years of age and looked it. He had been for more than twenty years at
the Treasury, in which organism he had now attained a certain
importance. He was a Companion of the Bath. He exulted in the fact
that the Order of the Bath took precedence of those bumptious Orders,
Star of India, St. Michael and St. George, Indian Empire, Royal
Victorian and British Empire; but he laughed at his wife for so exulting.
If the matter happened to be mentioned he would point out that in the
table of precedence Companions of the Bath ranked immediately below
Masters in Lunacy.
He was proud of the Treasury's war record. Other departments of State
had swollen to amazing dimensions during the war. The Treasury,
while its work had been multiplied a hundredfold, had increased its
personnel by only a negligible percentage. It was the cheapest of all the
departments, the most efficient, and the most powerful. The War Office,
the Admiralty, and perhaps one other department presided over by a
personality whom the Prime Minister feared, did certainly defy and
even ignore the Treasury. But the remaining departments (and
especially the "mushroom ministries") might scheme as much as they
liked,--they could do nothing until the Treasury had approved their
enterprises. Modest Mr. Prohack was among the chief arbiters of
destiny for them. He had daily sat in a chair by himself and approved or
disapproved according to his conscience and the rules of the Exchequer;
and his fiats, in practice, had gone forth as the fiats of the Treasury.
Moreover he could not be bullied, for he was full of the sense that the
whole constitution and moral force of the British Empire stood waiting
to back him. Scarcely known beyond the Treasury, within the Treasury
he had acquired a reputation as "the terror of the departments." Several
times irritated Ministers or their high subordinates had protested that

the Treasury's (Mr. Prohack's) passion for rules, its demands for
scientific evidence, and its sceptical disposition were losing the war.
Mr. Prohack had, in effect retorted: "Departmentally considered, losing
the war is a detail." He had retorted: "Wild cats will not win the war."
And he had retorted: "I know nothing but my duty."
In the end the war was not lost, and Mr. Prohack reckoned that he
personally, by the exercise of courage in the face of grave danger, had
saved to the country five hundred and forty-six millions of the country's
money. At any rate he had exercised a real