riotic
act."

"Oh, Mr. Prohack!"

"Yes. Mr. Carrel Quire may be--probably is--a delightful fellow, but he
is too full of brains, and he constitutes the gravest danger that has
threatened the British Empire for a hundred years. Hence it is my duty
to ruin him if I get the chance; and I've got the chance. I don't see
how he could survive the exposure of the simple fact that while
preaching anti-waste he is keeping motor-cars in the names of young
women."

The car had stopped in front of a shop over whose door a pair of gilded
animals like nothing in zoology were leaping amiably at each other. Miss
Winstock began to search neurotically in a bag for a handkerchief.

"This is the scene of my next appointment," Mr. Prohack continued.
"Would you prefer to leave me at once or will you wait again?"

Miss Winstock hesitated.

"You had better wait," Mr. Prohack decided. "You'll be crying in fifteen
seconds and your handkerchief is sadly inadequate to the crisis. Try a
little self-control, and don't let Carthew hypnotise you. I shan't be
surprised if you're gone when I come back."

A commissionaire was now holding open the door of the car.

"Carthew," said Mr. Prohack privily, after he had got out. "Oblige me
by imagining that during my absence the car is empty."

Carthew quivered for a fraction of eternity, but was exceedingly quick
to recover.

"Yes, sir."

The shop was all waxed parquetry, silks, satins, pure linen and pure
wool, diversified by a few walking-sticks and a cuff link or so. Faced
by a judge-like middle-aged authority in a frock-coat, Mr. Prohack
suddenly lost the magisterial demeanour which he had exhibited to a
defenceless girl in the car. He comprehended in a flash that suits of
clothes were a detail in the existence of an idle man and that neckties
and similar supremacies alone mattered.

"I want a necktie," he began gently.

"Certainly, sir," said the judge. But the judge's eyes, fixed on Mr.
Prohack's neck, said: "I should just think you did."

Life was enlarged to a bewildering, a maddening maze of neckties. Mr.
Prohack considered in his heart that one of the needs of the day was an
encyclopaedia of neckties. As he bought neckties he felt as foolish as a
woman buying cigars. Any idiot could buy a suit, but neckties baffled
the intelligence of the Terror of the departments, though he had worn
something in the nature of a necktie for forty years. The neckties which
he bought inspired him with