rs, including the paper perused by Machin with her early
bedside tea and doubtless carefully folded again in its original creases
to look virginal.

The reappearance of that sheet had somewhat the quality of a sinister
miracle to Mr. Prohack. He asked no questions about it so that he might
be told no lies, but he searched it in vain for a trace of the suffering
Machin. It was, however, full of typographical traces of himself and his
family. The description of the reception was disturbingly journalistic,
which adjective, for Mr. Prohack, unfortunately connoted the adjective
vulgar. All the wrong people were in the list of guests, and all the
decent quiet people were omitted. A value of twenty thousand pounds was
put upon the necklace, contradicting another part of the report which
stated the pearls to be "priceless." Mr. Prohack's fortune was referred
to; also his Treasury past; the implication being that the fortune had
caused him to leave the Treasury. His daughter's engagement to Mr.
Morfey was glanced at; and it was remarked that Mr. Morfey--"known to
all his friends and half London as 'Ozzie' Morfey"--was intimately
connected with the greatest stage Napoleon in history, Mr. Asprey Chown.
Finally a few words were given to Charlie; who was dubbed "a budding
financier already responsible for one highly successful _coup_ and
likely to be responsible for several others before much more water has
run under the bridges of the Thames."

Mr. Prohack knew, then, in his limbs the meaning of the word "writhe,"
and he was glad that he had not had his bath, because even if he had had
his bath he would have needed another one. His attitude towards his
fellow men had a touch of embittered and cynical scorn unworthy of a
philosopher. He turned, in another paper, to the financial column, for,
though all his money was safe in fixed-interest-bearing securities, the
fluctuations of whose capital value could not affect his safety, yet he
somehow could not remain quite indifferent to the fluctuations of their
capital value; and in the financial column he saw a reference to a
"young operator," who, he was convinced, could be no other than Charlie;
in the reference there was a note of sarcasm which hurt Mr. Prohack and
aroused anew his apprehensions.

And among his correspondence was a letter which had been delivered by
hand. He thought he knew the handwriting on the envelope, and he did: it
was from Mr. Softly Bishop. Mr. Softly Bishop b