things it used to stand. It's a new public. It's--wild. It'll smash up
the show if they go too far. Everything short and running shorter--food,
fuel, material. But these people go on. They go on as though nothing had
changed.... Strikes, Russia, nothing will warn them. There are men on
that Commission who would steal the brakes off a mountain railway just
before they went down in it.... It's a struggle with suicidal imbeciles.
It's--! But I'm talking! I didn't come here to talk Fuel."

"You think there may be a smash-up?"

"I lie awake at night, thinking of it."

"A social smash-up."

"Economic. Social. Yes. Don't you?"

"A social smash-up seems to me altogether a possibility. All sorts of
people I find think that," said the doctor. "All sorts of people lie
awake thinking of it."

"I wish some of my damned Committee would!"

The doctor turned his eyes to the window. "I lie awake too," he said and
seemed to reflect. But he was observing his patient acutely--with his
ears.

"But you see how important it is," said Sir Richmond, and left his
sentence unfinished.

"I'll do what I can for you," said the doctor, and considered swiftly