suddenly.

"I'll take it out of the damned Commission. I'll make old Rumford Brown
sit up."

He was astonished to find himself thinking of the affairs of the
Commission with a lively interest and no trace of fatigue. He had
had his change; he had taken his rest; he was equal to his task again
already. He started his engine and steered his way past a van and a
waiting cab.

"Fuel," he said.

CHAPTER THE NINTH

THE LAST DAYS OF SIR RICHMOND HARDY

Section 1

The Majority and Minority Reports of the Fuel Commission were received
on their first publication with much heat and disputation, but there is
already a fairly general agreement that they are great and significant
documents, broadly conceived and historically important. They do lift
the questions of fuel supply and distribution high above the level of
parochial jealousies and above the petty and destructive profiteering of
private owners and traders, to a view of a general human welfare. They
form an important link in a series of private and public documents
that are slowly opening out a prospect of new economic methods, methods
conceived in the generous spirit of scientific work, that may yet arrest
the drift of our western civilization towards financial and commercial
squalor and the social collapse that must ensue inevitably on that.
In view of the composition of the Committee, the Majority Report is in
itself an amazing triumph of Sir Richmond's views; it is astonishing
that he was able to drive his opponents so far and then leave them there
securely advanced while he carried on the adherents he had altogether
won, including, of course, the labour representatives, to the further
altitudes of the Minority Report.

After the Summer recess the Majority Report was discussed and adopted.
Sir Richmond had shown signs of flagging energy in June, but he had
come back in September in a state of exceptional vigour; for a time
he completely dominated the Committee by the passionate force of his
convictions and the illuminating scorn he brought to bear on the various
subterfuges and weakening amendments by which the meaner interests
sought to save themselves in whole or in part from the common duty of
sacrifice. But toward the end he fell ill. He had worked to the pitch of
exhaustion. He neglected a cold that settled on his chest. He began to
cough persistently and betray an increasingly irritable temper. In the
last fights in the Committee his face was brig