"WELL, Milton, had a good holiday?" said Mr. Prohack to the hall-porteron entering his chief club for lunch that day.
"No, sir," said the hall-porter, who was a realist.
"Ah, well," said Mr. Prohack soothingly. "Perhaps not a bad thing.There's nothing like an unsatisfactory holiday for reconciling us all toa life of toil, is there?"
"No, sir," said Milton, impassively, and added: "Mr. Bishop has justcalled to see you, sir. I told him you'd probably be in shortly. He saidhe wouldn't wait but he might look in again."
"Thanks," said Mr. Prohack. "If he does, I shall be either in thecoffee-room or upstairs."
Mr. Prohack walked into the majestic interior of the Club, which hadbeen closed, rather later than usual, for its annual cleaning. Hesavoured anew and more sharply the beauty and stateliness of itsarchitecture, the elaboration of its conveniences, the severe splendourof its luxury. And he saw familiar and congenial faces, and on everyface was a mild joy similar to the joy which he himself experienced inthe reopening of the Club. And he was deliciously aware of the "clubfeeling," unlike, and more agreeable than, any other atmosphere of anorganism in the world.
The Club took no time at all to get into its stride after the closure.It opened its doors and was instantly its full self. For hundreds ofgrave men in and near London had risen that very morning from their bedsuplifted by the radiant thought: "To-day I can go to the Club again."Mr. Prohack had long held that the noblest, the most civilisedachievement of the British character was not the British Empire, nor theHouse of Commons, nor the steam-engine, nor aniline dyes, nor themusic-hall, but a good West End club. And somehow at the doors of a goodWest End club there was an invisible magic sieve, through which thehuman body could pass but through which human worries could not pass.
This morning, however, Mr. Prohack perceived that one worry could passthrough the sieve, namely a worry concerning the Club itself.... Giveup the Club? Was the sacrifice to be consummated? Impossible! Could hepicture himself strolling down St. James's Street without the right toenter the sacred gates--save as a guest? And supposing he entered as aguest, could he bear the hall-porter to say to him: "If you'll take aseat, sir, I'll send and see if Mr. Blank is in the Club. What name,sir?" Impossible! Yet Milton would be capable of saying just that.Milton would never pardon a defection.... Well, then, he must give upthe other club. But the other--and smaller--Club had great qualities ofits own. Indeed it was indispensable. And could he permit the day todawn on which he would no longer be entitled to refer to "my otherclub"? Impossible! Nevertheless he had decided to give up his otherclub. He must give it up, if only to keep even with his wife. Themonetary saving would be unimportant, but the act would be spectacular.And Mr. Prohack perfectly comprehended the value of the spectacular inexistence.
II
He sat down to lunch among half a dozen cronies at one of the largertables in a window-embrasure of the vaulted coffee-room with itsprecious portrait of that historic clubman, Charles James Fox, and heordered himself the cheapest meal that the menu could offer, and pouredhimself out a glass of water.
"Same old menu!" remarked savagely Mr. Prohack's great crony, Sir PaulSpinner, the banker, who suffered from carbuncles and who always droveover from the city in the middle of the day.
"Here's old Paul grumbling again!" said Sims of Downing Street. "Afterall, this is the best club in London."
"It certainly is," said Mr. Prohack, "when it's closed. During the pastfour weeks this club has been the most perfect institution on the faceof the earth."
They all laughed. And they began recounting to each other theunparalleled miseries and indignities which such of them as had remainedin London had had to endure in the clubs that had "extended theirhospitality" to members of the closed club. The catalogue of ills wasterrible. Yes, there was only one club deserving of the name.
"Still," said Sir Paul. "They might give us a rest from prunes andrice."
"This club," said Mr. Prohack, "like all other clubs, is managed by acommittee of Methuselahs who can only digest prunes and rice." Andafter a lot more talk about the idiosyncrasies of clubs he said, with acasual air: "For myself, I belong to too many clubs."
Said Hunter, a fellow official of the Treasury:
"But I thought you only had two clubs, Arthur."
"Only two. But it's one too many. In fact I'm not sure if it isn't twotoo many."
"Are you getting disgusted with human nature?" Sims suggested.
"No," said Mr. Prohack. "I'm getting hard up. I've committed thegreatest crime in the world. I've committed poverty. And I feel guilty."
And the truth was that he did feel guilty. He was entirely innocent; hewas a victim; he had left undone nothing that he ought to have done; buthe felt guilty, thus proving that poverty is indeed seriously a crimeand that those who in sardonic jest describe it as a crime are deeperphilosophers than they suppose.
"Never say die," smiled the monocled Mixon, a publisher of scientificworks, and began to inveigh against the Government as an ungrateful andunscrupulous employer and exploiter of dutiful men in an inferno ofrising prices. But the rest thought Mixon unhappy in his choice oftopic. Hunter of the Treasury said nothing. What was there to say thatwould not tend to destroy the true club atmosphere? Even the belovedProhack had perhaps failed somewhat in tact. They all understood, theyall mildly sympathised, but they could do no more--particularly in amiscellaneous assemblage of eight members. No, they felt a certainconstraint; and in a club constraint should be absolutely unknown. Someof them glanced uneasily about the crowded, chattering room.
III
It was then, that a remarkable coincidence occurred.
"I saw Bishop at Inverness last week," said Sir Paul Spinner to Mr.Prohack, apropos of nothing whatever. "Seems he's got a big moor thisyear in Sutherlandshire. So I suppose he's recovered from his overdoseof shipping shares."
Bishop (Fred Ferrars) was a financier with a cheerful, negligentattitude towards the insecurities and uncertainties of a speculativeexistence. He was also a close friend of Prohack, of Sir Paul, and ofseveral others at the table, and a member of Prohack's secondary club,though not of his primary club.
"That's strange," said Mr. Prohack. "I hear he's in London."
"He most positively isn't in London," said Sir Paul. "He's not comingback until November."
"Then that shows how little the evidence of the senses can be reliedupon," remarked Mr. Prohack gently. "According to the hall-porter hecalled here for me a few minutes ago, and he may call again."
The banker grunted. "The deuce he did! Does that mean he's in some freshtrouble, I wonder?"
At the same moment a page-girl, the smart severity of whose uniform wasmitigated by a pig-tail and a bow of ribbon, approached Mr. Prohack'schair, and, bending her young head to his ear, delivered to him with themanner of a bearer of formidable secrets:
"Mr. Bishop to see you, sir."
"There he is!" exclaimed Mr. Prohack. "Now he's bound to want lunch. Whyon earth can't we bring guests in here? Waitress, have the lunch I'veordered served in the guests' dining-room, please.... No doubt Bishopand I'll see you chaps upstairs later."
He went off to greet and welcome Bishop, full of joy at the prospect oftasting anew the rich personality of his old friend. It is true that hehad a qualm about the expense of standing Bishop a lunch--a fellow whorelished his food and drink and could distinguish between the best andthe second best; but on the other hand he could talk very freely toBishop concerning the crisis in which he found himself; and he knew thatBishop would not allow Bishop's affairs, however troublesome they mightbe, unduly to bother _him_.
Bishop was not on the bench in the hall where visitors were appointed towait. Only one man was on the bench, a spectacled, red-faced person. Mr.Prohack glanced about. Then the page-girl pointed to the spectacledperson, who jumped up and approached Mr. Prohack somewhat effusively.
"How d'ye do, Prohack?"
"Well, _Bishop_!" Mr. Prohack responded. "It's _you_!"
It was another Bishop, a Bishop whom he had forgotten, a Bishop who hadresigned from the club earlier and disappeared. Mr. Prohack did not likehim. Mr. Prohack said to himself: "This fellow is after something, and Ialways knew he was an adventurer."
"Funny feeling it gives you to be asked to wait in the hall of a clubthat you used to belong to!" said Bishop.
The apparently simple words, heavy with sinister significance, sanklike a depth-charge into Mr. Prohack's consciousness.
"Among other things," said Mr. Prohack to himself, "this fellow is veryobviously after a free lunch."
Now Mr. Prohack suffered from a strange form of insincerity, which hehad often unsuccessfully tried to cure, partly because it advantagedunsympathetic acquaintances at his expense, and partly because his wifeproduced unanswerable arguments against it with mortal effect. Althoughan unconceited man (as men go), and a very honest man, he could not helppretending to like people whom he did not like. And he pretended with ahistrionic skill that deceived everybody--sometimes even himself. Theremay have been some good-nature in this moral twist of his; but he wellknew that it originated chiefly in three morbid desires,--the desire toplease, the desire to do the easiest thing, and the desire to nourishhis reputation for amiability.
So that when the unexpected Mr. Bishop (whose Christian name was Softly)said to him: "I won't keep you now. Only I was passing and I want you tobe kind enough to make an early appointment with me at some time andplace entirely convenient to yourself," Mr. Prohack proceeded topersuade Mr. Bishop to stay to lunch, there being no sort of reason infavour of such a course, and various sound reasons against it. Mr.Prohack deceived Mr. Softly Bishop as follows:
"No time and place like the present. You must stay to lunch. This isyour old club and you must stay to lunch."
"But you've begun your lunch," Bishop protested.
"I've not. The fact is, I was half expecting you to look in again. Thehall-porter told me...." And Mr. Prohack actually patted Mr. Bishop onthe shoulder--a trick he had. "Come now, don't tell me you've gotanother lunch appointment. It's twenty-five to two." And to himself,leading Mr. Bishop to the strangers' dining-room, he said: "Why should Ifurther my own execution in this way?"
He ordered a lunch as copious and as costly as he would have ordered forthe other, the real Bishop. Powerful and vigorous in some directions,Mr. Prohack's mentality was deplorably weak in at least one other.
Mr. Softly Bishop was delighted with his reception, and Mr. Prohackbegan to admit that Mr. Bishop had some personal charm. Neverthelesswhen the partridge came, Mr. Prohack acidly reflected:
"I'm offering this fellow a portion of my daughter's new frock on acharger!"
They talked of the club, Mr. Bishop as a former member being surelyentitled to learn all about it, and then they talked about clubs in theUnited States, where Mr. Bishop had spent recent years. But Mr. Bishoppersisted in giving no hint of his business.
"It must be something rather big and annoying," thought Mr. Prohack, andordered another portion of his daughter's new frock in the shape ofexcellent cigars.
"You don't mean to say we can smoke _here_," exclaimed Mr. Bishop.
"Yes," said Mr. Prohack. "Not in the members' coffee-room, but we canhere. Stroke of genius on the part of the Committee! You see it tends tokeep guests out of the smoking-room, which for a long time has beengetting uncomfortably full after lunch."
"Good God!" murmured Mr. Bishop simply.