Mr. Prohack | Page 2

influence over the conduct
of the war. On one occasion, a chief being absent, he had had to answer
a summons to the Inner Cabinet. Of this occasion he had remarked to
his excited wife: "They were far more nervous than I was."
Despite all this, the great public had never heard of him. His portrait
had never appeared in the illustrated papers. His wife's portrait, as
"War-worker and wife of a great official," had never appeared in the
illustrated papers. No character sketch of him had ever been printed.
His opinions on any subject had never been telephonically or otherwise
demanded by the editors of up-to-date dailies. His news-value indeed
was absolutely nil. In _Who's Who_ he had only four lines of space.
Mr. Prohack's breakfast consisted of bacon, dry toast, coffee,
marmalade, The Times and The Daily Picture. The latter was full of
brides and bridegrooms, football, enigmatic murder trials, young
women in their fluffy underclothes, medicines, pugilists, cinema stars,
the biggest pumpkin of the season, uplift, and inspired prophecy
concerning horses and company shares; together with a few brief
unillustrated notes about civil war in Ireland, famine in Central Europe,
and the collapse of realms.
II
"Ah! So I've caught you!" said his wife, coming brightly into the room.
She was a buxom woman of forty-three. Her black hair was elaborately
done for the day, but she wore a roomy peignoir instead of a frock; it
was Chinese, in the Imperial yellow, inconceivably embroidered with
flora, fauna, and grotesques. She always thus visited her husband at

breakfast, picking bits off his plate like a bird, and proving to him that
her chief preoccupation was ever his well-being and the satisfaction of
his capricious tastes.
"Many years ago," said Mr. Prohack.
"You make a fuss about buying The Daily Picture for me. You say it
humiliates you to see it in the house, and I don't know what. But I catch
you reading it yourself, and before you've opened The Times! Dear,
dear! That bacon's a cinder and I daren't say anything to her."
"Lady," replied Mr. Prohack, "we all have something base in our
natures. Sin springs from opportunity. I cannot resist the damned
paper." And he stuck his fork into the fair frock-coat of a fatuous
bridegroom coming out of church.
"My fault again!" the wife remarked brightly.
The husband changed the subject:
"I suppose that your son and daughter are still asleep?"
"Well, dearest, you know that they were both at that dance last night."
"They ought not to have been. The popular idea that life is a shimmy is
a dangerous illusion." Mr. Prohack felt the epigram to be third-rate, but
he carried it off lightly.
"Sissie only went because Charlie wanted to go, and all I can say is that
it's a nice thing if Charlie isn't to be allowed to enjoy himself now the
war's over--after all he's been through."
"You're mixing up two quite different things. I bet that if Charlie
committed murder you'd go into the witness-box and tell the judge he'd
been wounded twice and won the Military Cross."
"This is one of your pernickety mornings."
"Seeing that your debauched children woke me up at three fifteen--!"

"They woke me up too."
"That's different. You can go to sleep again. I can't. You rather like
being wakened up, because you take a positively sensual pleasure in
turning over and going to sleep again."
"You hate me for that."
"I do."
"I make you very unhappy sometimes, don't I?"
"Eve, you are a confounded liar, and you know it. You have never
caused me a moment's unhappiness. You may annoy me. You may
exasperate me. You are frequently unspeakable. But you have never
made me unhappy. And why? Because I am one of the few exponents
of romantic passion left in this city. My passion for you transcends my
reason. I am a fool, but I am a magnificent fool. And the greatest
miracle of modern times is that after twenty-four years of marriage you
should be able to give me pleasure by perching your stout body on the
arm of my chair as you are doing."
"Arthur, I'm not stout."
"Yes, you are. You're enormous. But hang it, I'm such a morbid fool I
like you enormous."
Mrs. Prohack, smiling mysteriously, remarked in a casual tone, as she
looked at _The Daily Picture_:
"Why do people let their photographs get into the papers? It's awfully
vulgar."
"It is. But we're all vulgar to-day. Look at that!" He pointed to the page.
"The granddaughter of a duke who refused the hand of a princess sells
her name and her face to a firm of ship-owners who keep newspapers
like their grandfathers kept pigeons.... But perhaps I'm only making a
noise like a