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.