club. I've seen 'em. Your club's full every night of the most formidable
spinsters each eating at a table alone. Give up your club by all means.
Set fire to it and burn it down. But don't count the act as a
renunciation. You hate your club. Good morning, my dove."


IV

One advantage of the situation of Mr. Prohack's house was that his path
therefrom to the Treasury lay almost entirely through verdant
parks--Hyde Park, the Green Park, St. James's Park. Not infrequently he
referred to the advantage in terms of bland satisfaction. True, in wet
weather the advantage became a disadvantage.

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."