sadvantage.

During his walk through verdant parks that morning, the Terror of the
Departments who habitually thought in millions was very gloomy.
Something resembling death was in his heart. Humiliation also was
certainly in his heart, for he felt that, no matter whose the fault, he
was failing in the first duty of a man. He raged against the Chancellor
of the Exchequer. He sliced off the head of the Chancellor of the
Exchequer with his stick. (But it was only an innocent autumn
wildflower, perilously blooming.) And the tang in the air foretold the
approach of winter and the grip of winter--the hell of the poor.

Near Whitehall he saw the advertisement of a firm of shop-specialists:

"BRING YOUR BUSINESS TROUBLES TO US."

CHAPTER II

FROM THE DEAD

I

"WELL, Milton, had a good holiday?" said Mr. Prohack to the hall-porter
on entering his chief club for lunch that day.

"No, sir," said the hall-porter, who was a realist.

"Ah, well," said Mr. Prohack soothingly. "Perhaps not a bad thing.
There's nothing like an unsatisfactory holiday for reconciling us all to
a life of toil, is there?"

"No, sir," said Milton, impassively, and added: "Mr. Bishop has just
called to see you, sir. I told him you'd probably be in shortly. He said
he wouldn't wait but he might look in again."

"Thanks," said Mr. Prohack. "If he does, I shall be either in the
coffee-room or upstairs."

Mr. Prohack walked into the majestic interior of the Club, which had
been closed, rather later than usual, for its annual cleaning. He
savoured anew and more sharply the beauty and stateliness of its
architecture, the elaboration of its conveniences, the severe splendour
of its luxury. And he saw familiar and congenial faces, and on every
face was a mild joy similar to the joy which he himself experienced in
the reopening of the Club. And he was deliciously aware of the "club
feeling," unlike, and more agreeable than, any other atmosphere of an
organism in the world.

The Club took no time at all to get into its stride after the closure.
It opened its doors and was instantly its full self. For hundreds of
grave men in and near London had risen that very morning from their beds
uplifted by the radiant thought: "To-day I can go to the Club again."
Mr. Prohack had long held that the noblest, the most civilised
achievement of the British character was not the British Empire, nor the
House of Commons, nor the steam-engine, nor aniline dyes