I  
 
When Mr. Prohack, in his mature but still rich velvet¹ jacket, came down to dinner, he found his son Charlie leaning against the mantelpiece in a new dark brown suit, and studying The Owner-Driver. Charlie seemed never to read anything but motor-car and light-car and side-car and motor-bicycle periodical literature; but he read it conscientiously², indefatigably³, and completely—advertisements and all. He read it as though it were an endless novel of passion and he an idle woman deprived of the society her heart longed for. He possessed⁴ a motor-bicycle which he stabled in a mews behind the Square. He had possessed several such machines; he bought, altered, and sold them, apparently⁵ always with profit to himself. He had no interest in non-mechanical literature or in any of the arts.
 
"Your mother's gone to bed with a headache," said Mr. Prohack, with a fair imitation of melancholy⁶.
 
"Oh!" said the young man apathetically⁷. His face had a wearied, disillusioned⁸ expression.
 
"Is this the latest?" asked his father, indicating the new brown suit. "My respectful congratulations. Very smart, especially at the waist."
 
For a youth who had nothing in the world but what remained of his wound gratuity⁹ and other trifling¹⁰ military emoluments¹¹, and what he made out of commerce in motor-bicycles, Charlie spent a lot in clothes. His mother had advised his father to "speak to him about it." But his father had declined to offer any criticism, on the ground that Charlie had fought in Mesopotamia, Italy and France. Moreover, Charlie had scotched¹² any possible criticism by asserting that good clothes were all that stood between him and the ruin of his career. "If I dressed like the dad," he had once grimly and gloomily remarked, "it would be the beginning of the end for me."
 
"Smart?" he now exclaimed, stepping forward. "Look at that." He advanced his right leg a little. "Look at that crease¹³. See where it falls?" The trouser-crease, which, as all wise men know, ought to have fallen exactly on the centre of the boot-lacing, fell about an inch to the left thereof. "And I've tried this suit on four times! All the bally tailors in London seem to think you've got nothing else to do but call and try on and try on and try on. Never seems to occur to them that they don't know their business. It's as bad as staff work. However, if this fellow thinks I'm going to stick these trousers he'll have the surprise of his life to-morrow morning." The youth spoke¹⁴ in a tone of earnest disgust.
 
"My boy," said Mr. Prohack, "you have my most serious sympathy. Your life must be terribly complicated by this search for perfection."
 
"Yes, that's all very well," said Charlie.
 
"Where's Sissie?"
 
"Hanged if I know!"
 
"I heard her playing the piano not five minutes since."
 
"So did I."
 
Machin, the house-parlourmaid, then intervened:
 
"Miss Sissie had a telephone call, and she's gone out, sir."
 
"Where to?"
 
"She didn't say, sir. She only said she wouldn't be in for dinner, sir. I made sure she'd told you herself, sir."
 
The two men, by means of their eyes, transmitted to each other a unanimous judgment¹⁵ upon the whole female sex, and sat down to dine alone in the stricken house. The dinner was extremely frugal¹⁶, this being the opening day of Mrs. Prohack's new era of intensive economy, but the obvious pleasure of Machin in serving only men brightened up somewhat its brief course. Charlie was taciturn and curt¹⁷, though not impolite. Mr. Prohack, whose private high spirits not even the amazing and inexcusable absence of his daughter could impair¹⁸, pretended to a decent woe¹⁹, and chatted as he might have done to a fellow-clubman on a wet Sunday night at the Club.
 
At the end of the meal Charlie produced the enormous widow's cruse which he called his cigarette-case and offered his father a cigarette.
 
"Doing anything to-night?" asked Mr. Prohack, puffing²⁰.
 
"No," answered desperately²¹ Charlie, puffing.
 
"Ring the bell, will you?"
 
While Charlie went to the mantelpiece Mr. Prohack secreted²² an apple for his starving wife.
 
"Machin," said he to the incoming house-parlourmaid, "see if you can find some port."
 
Charlie raised his fatigued²³ eyebrows²⁴.
 
"Yes, sir," said the house-parlourmaid, vivaciously²⁵, and whisked away her skirts, which seemed to remark:
 
"You're quite right to have port. I feel very sorry for you two attractive gentlemen taking a poor dinner all alone."
 
Charlie drank his port in silence and Mr. Prohack watched him.
 
 
 
II
 
 
Mr. Prohack's son was, in some respects, a great mystery to him. He could not understand, for instance, how his own offspring could be so unresponsive to the attractions of the things of the mind, and so interested in mere²⁷ machinery²⁸ and the methods of moving a living or a lifeless object from one spot on the earth's surface to another. Mr. Prohack admitted the necessity of machinery, but an automobile²⁹ had for him the same status as a child's scooter and no higher. It was an ingenious device for locomotion³⁰. And there for him the matter ended. On the other hand, Mr. Prohack sympathised with and comprehended his son's general attitude towards life. Charlie had gone to war from Cambridge at the age of nineteen. He went a boy, and returned a grave man. He went thoughtless and light-hearted, and returned full of magnificent and austere³¹ ideals. Six months of England had destroyed these ideals in him. He had expected to help in the common task of making heaven in about a fortnight. In the war he had learnt much about the possibilities of human nature, but scarcely anything about its limitations. His father tried to warn him, but of course failed. Charlie grew resentful, then cynical³². He saw in England nothing but futility³³, injustice³⁴ and ingratitude³⁵. He refused to resume Cambridge, and was bitterly sarcastic³⁶ about the generosity³⁷ of a nation which, through its War Office, was ready to pay to studious warriors³⁸ anxious to make up University terms lost in a holy war decidedly less than it paid to its street-sweepers. Having escaped from death, the aforesaid warriors were granted the right to starve their bodies while improving their minds. He might have had sure situations in vast corporations. He declined them. He spat³⁹ on them. He called them "graves." What he wanted was an opportunity to fulfil himself. He could not get it, and his father could not get it from him. While searching for it, he frequently met warriors covered with ribbons but lacking food and shelter not only for themselves but for their women and children. All this, human nature being what it is, was inevitable⁴⁰, but his father could not convincingly tell him so. All that Mr. Prohack could effectively do Mr. Prohack did,—namely, provide the saviour⁴¹ of Britain with food and shelter. Charlie was restlessly and dangerously waiting for his opportunity. But he had not developed into a revolutionist, nor a communist, nor anything of the sort. Oh, no! Quite the reverse. He meditated⁴² a different revenge on society.
 
Mr. Prohack knew nothing of this meditated revenge, did not suspect it. If he had suspected it, he might have felt less compassion⁴³ than, on this masculine evening with the unusual port, he did in fact feel. For he was very sorry for Charlie. He longed to tell him about the fortune, and to exult⁴⁴ with him in the fortune, and to pour, as it were, the fortune into his lap. He did not care a fig⁴⁵, now, about advisable precautions. He did not feel the slightest constraint⁴⁶ at the prospect⁴⁷ of imparting the tremendous and gorgeous news to his son. He had no desire to reflect upon the proper method of telling. He merely and acutely wanted to tell, so that he might see the relief and the joyous⁴⁸ anticipation⁴⁹ on his son's enigmatic and melancholy face. But he could not tell because it had been tacitly agreed with his wife that he should not tell in her absence. True, he had given no verbal promise, but he had given something just as binding⁵⁰.
 
"Nothing exciting to-day, I suppose," he said, when the silence had begun to distress⁵¹ him in his secret glee.
 
"No," Charlie replied. "I got particulars of an affair at Glasgow, but it needs money."
 
"What sort of an affair?"
 
"Oh! Rather difficult to explain. Buying and selling. Usual thing."
 
"What money is needed?"
 
"I should say three hundred or thereabouts. Might as well be three thousand so far as I'm concerned."
 
"Where did you hear of it?"
 
"Club."
 
Charlie belonged to a little club in Savile Place where young warriors told each other what they thought of the nature of society.
 
Mr. Prohack drew in his breath with an involuntary gasp⁵², and then said:
 
"I expect I could let you have three hundred."
 
"You couldn't!"
 
"I expect I could." Mr. Prohack had never felt so akin²⁶ to a god. It seemed to him that he was engaged in the act of creating a future, yea, a man. Charlie's face changed. He had been dead. He was now suddenly alive.
 
"When?"
 
"Well, any time."
 
"Now?"
 
"Why not?"
 
Charlie looked at his watch.
 
"Well, I'm much obliged," he said.
 
 
 
III
 
 
Mr. Prohack had brought a new cheque-book from the Bank. It lay in his hip-pocket. He had no alternative but to write out a cheque. Three hundred pounds would nearly exhaust his balance, but that did not matter. He gave Charlie the cheque. Charlie offered no further information concerning the "affair" for which the money was required. And Mr. Prohack did not choose to enquire⁵³. Perhaps he was too proud to enquire. The money would probably be lost. And if it were lost no harm would be done. Good, rather, for Charlie would have gained experience. The lad was only a child, after all.
 
The lad ran upstairs, and Mr. Prohack sat solitary⁵⁴ in delightful⁵⁵ meditation⁵⁶. After a few minutes the lad re-appeared in hat and coat. Mr. Prohack thought that he had heard a bag dumped in the hall.
 
"Where are you off to?" he asked.
 
"Glasgow. I shall catch the night-train."
 
He rang the bell.
 
"Machin, run out and get me a taxi, sharp."
 
"Yes, sir." Machin flew. This was the same girl of whom Mrs. Prohack dared to demand nothing. Mr. Prohack himself would have hesitated to send her for a taxi. But Charlie ordered her about like a slave and she seemed to like it.
 
"Rather sudden this, isn't it?" said Mr. Prohack, extremely startled by the turn of events.
 
"Well, you've got to be sudden in this world, guv'nor," Charlie replied, and lit a fresh cigarette.
 
Mr. Prohack was again too proud to put questions. Still, he did venture upon one question:
 
"Have you got loose money for your fare?"
 
The lad laughed. "Oh, don't let that worry you, guv'nor...!" He looked at his watch once more. "I wonder whether that infernal girl is manufacturing that taxi or only fetching it."
 
"What must I say to your mother?" demanded Mr. Prohack.
 
"Give her my respectful regards."
 
The taxi was heard. Machin dashed into the house, and dashed out again with the bag. The lad clasped his father's hand with a warm vigour⁵⁷ that pleased and reassured⁵⁸ Mr. Prohack in his natural bewilderment. It was not consistent with the paternal⁵⁹ dignity to leave the dining-room and stand, valedictory⁶⁰, on the front-doorstep.
 
"Well, I'm dashed!" Mr. Prohack murmured to himself as the taxi drove away. And he had every right to be dashed.