. They must have cost their owner about as much as his
motor-car for upkeep--what with medical fees, travelling and foreign
hotels--and nobody knew whether they remained uncured because they were
incurable or because the medical profession thought it would be cruel at
one stroke to deprive itself of a regular income and Sir Paul of his
greatest hobby. The strange thing was that Sir Paul with all his
powerful general sagacity and shrewdness, continued firmly, despite
endless disappointments, in the mystical faith that one day the
carbuncles would be abolished.

"I won't beat about the bush," said he. "We know one another. I came
here to talk frankly and I'll talk frankly."

"You go right ahead," Mr. Prohack benevolently encouraged him.

"First of all I should like to give you just the least hint of warning
against that fellow Softly Bishop. I daresay you know something' about
him--"

"I know nothing about him, except the way he looks down his nose. But no
man who looks down his nose the way he looks down his nose is going to
influence me in the management of my financial affairs. I'm only an
official; I should be a lamb in the City; but I have my safeguards, old
chap. Thanks for the tip all the same."

Sir Paul Spinner laughed hoarsely, as Mr. Prohack had made him laugh
hundreds of times in the course of their friendship. And Mr. Prohack was
aware of a feeling of superiority to Sir Paul. The feeling grew steadily
in his breast, and he was not quite sure how it originated. Perhaps it
was due to a note of dawning obsequiousness in Sir Paul's laugh,
reminding Mr. Prohack of the ancient proverb that the jokes of the
exalted are always side-splitting.

"As I say," Sir Paul proceeded, "you and I know each other."

Mr. Prohack nodded, with a trace of impatience against unnecessary
repetition. Yet he was suddenly struck with the odd thought that Sir
Paul certainly did not know him, but only odd bits of him; and he was
doubtful whether he knew Sir Paul. He saw an obese man of sixty sitting
in the very chair that a few moments ago had been occupied by Carthew
the chauffeur, a man with big purplish features and a liverish eye, a
man smoking a plutocratic and heavenly cigar and eating it at the same
time, a man richly dressed and braided and jewelled, a man whose boots
showed no sign of a crease, an obvious millionaire of the old type, in
short a man who was practically all prejudices and waste-products. And
he wondered why