ting at the door.

III

He offered no remark as to the car, and Mr. Prohack offered no remark.
But Mr. Prohack was very interested in the car--he who had never been
interested in cars. And he was interested in the clothes and in the
deportment of the chauffeur. He was indeed interested in all sorts of
new things. The window of a firm of house-agents who specialised in
country houses, the jewellers' shops, the big hotels, the advertisements
of theatres and concerts, the establishments of trunk-makers and of
historic second-hand booksellers and of equally historic wine-merchants.
He saw them all with a fresh eye. London suddenly opened to him its
possibilities as a bud opens its petals.

"Not a bad car they; hired out to me," said Bishop at length, with
casual approval.

"You've hired it?"

"Oh, yes!"

And shortly afterwards Bishop said:

"It's fantastic the number of cars there are in use in America. You know
it's a literal fact that almost every American family has a car. For
instance, whenever there's a big meeting of strikers in New York, all
the streets near the hall are blocked with cars."

Mr. Prohack had food for reflection. His outlook upon life was changed.

And later Bishop said, again apropos of nothing:

"Of course it's only too true that the value of money has fallen by
about half. But on the other hand interest has about doubled. You can
get ten per cent on quite safe security in these days. Even Governments
have to pay about seven--as you know."

"Yes," concurred Mr. Prohack.

Ten thousand pounds a year!

And then he thought:

"What an infernal nuisance it would be if there was a revolution! Oh!
But there couldn't be. It's unthinkable. Revolution everywhere, yes; but
not in England or America!"

And he saw with the most sane and steady insight that the final duty of
a Government was to keep order. Change there must be, but let change
come gradually. Injustices must be remedied, naturally, but without any
upheaval! Yet in the club some of the cronies (and he among them), after
inveighing against profiteers and against the covetousness of trades
unions, had often held that "a good red revolution" was the only way of
knocking sense into the heads of these two classes.

The car got involved in a block of traffic near the Mansion House, and
rain began to fall. The two occupants of the car watched each other
surreptitiously, mutually suspicious, like dogs. Scraps of talk were
separated by