The Project Gutenberg eBook, Mr. Prohack, by E. Arnold Bennett

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Title: Mr. Prohack

Author: E. Arnold Bennett

Release Date: June 29, 2004 [eBook #12773]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. PROHACK***

E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Wilelmina Malliere, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

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,