Mr. Prohack | Page 4

of cars in London alone! And not a single one of them ours! This detail may have escaped you."
"I wish you wouldn't be silly, Arthur."
"I am not silly. On the contrary, my real opinion is that I'm the wisest man you ever met in your life--not excepting your son It remains that we're a pretence. A pretence resembles a bladder. It may burst. We probably shall burst. Still, we have one great advantage over the honest poor, who sometimes have no income at all; and also over the rich, who never can tell how big their incomes are going to be. We know exactly where we are. We know to the nearest sixpence."
"I don't see that that helps us. I consider the Government has treated you shamefully. I wonder you important men in the Treasury haven't formed a Trade Union before now."
"Oh, Eve! After all you've said about Trade Unions this last year! You shock me! We shall never he properly treated until we do form a Trade Union. But we shall never form a Trade Union, because we're too proud. And we'd sooner see our children starve than yield in our pride. That's a fact."
"There's one thing--we can't move into a cheaper house."
"No," Mr. Prohack concurred. "Because there isn't one."
Years earlier Mr. Prohack had bought the long lease of his house from the old man who, according to the logical London system, had built the house upon somebody else's land on the condition that he paid rent for the land and in addition gave the house to the somebody else at the end of a certain period as a free gift. By a payment of twelve pounds per annum Mr. Prohack was safe for forty years yet and he calculated that in forty years the ownership of the house would be a matter of some indifference both to him and to his wife.
"Well, as you're so desperately wise, perhaps you'll kindly tell me what we are to do."
"I might borrow money on my insurance policy--and speculate," said Mr. Prohack gravely.
"Oh! Arthur! Do you really think you--" Marian showed a wild gleam of hope.
"Or I might throw the money into the Serpentine," Mr. Prohack added.
"Oh! Arthur! I could kill you. I never know how to take you."
"No, you never do. That's the worst of a woman like you marrying a man like me."
They discussed devices. One servant fewer. No holiday. Cinemas instead of theatres. No books. No cigarettes. No taxis. No clothes. No meat. No telephone. No friends. They reached no conclusion. Eve referred to Adam's great Treasury mind. Adam said that his great Treasury mind should function on the problem during the day, and further that the problem must be solved that very night.
"I'll tell you one thing I shall do," said Mrs. Prohack in a decided tone as Mr. Prohack left the table. "I shall countermand Sissie'a new frock."
"If you do I shall divorce you," was the reply.
"But why?"
Mr. Prohack answered:
"In 1917 I saw that girl in dirty overalls driving a thundering great van down Whitehall. Yesterday I met her in her foolish high heels and her shocking openwork stockings and her negligible dress and her exposed throat and her fur stole, and she was so delicious and so absurd and so futile and so sure of her power that--that--well, you aren't going to countermand any new frock. That chit has the right to ruin me--not because of anything she's done, but because she is. I am ready to commit peccadilloes, but not crimes. Good morning, my dove."
And at the door, discreetly hiding her Chinese raiment behind the door, Eve said, as if she had only just thought of it, though she had been thinking of it for quite a quarter of an hour:
"Darling, there's your clubs."
"What about my clubs?"
"Don't they cost you a lot of money?"
"No. Besides I lunch at my clubs--better and cheaper than at any restaurant. And I shouldn't have time to come home for lunch."
"But do you need two clubs?"
"I've always belonged to two clubs. Every one does."
"But why _two_?"
"A fellow must have a club up his sleeve."
"_Couldn't_ you give up one?"
"Lady, it's unthinkable. You don't know what you're suggesting. Abandon one of my clubs that my father put me up for when I was a boy! I'd as soon join a Trade Union. No! My innocent but gluttonous children shall starve first."
"I shall give up my club!"
"Ah! But that's different."
"How is it different?" "You scarcely ever speak to a soul in your club. The food's bad in your club. They drink liqueurs before dinner at your club. I've seen 'em. Your club's full every night of the most formidable spinsters each eating at a table alone. Give up your club by all means. Set fire to it and burn it down. But don't