t pay
now. I'll squeeze every penny out of it. I'll teach it a lesson. And why
not? I shall only be shoving its own ideas down its throat. Supposing I
hadn't got this knack and I hadn't had _you_. I might have been wearing
all my ribbons and playing a barrel organ in Oxford Street to-day
instead of living at the Grand Babylon."

"You're becoming quite eloquent in your old age," said Mr. Prohack,
tremulously jocular while looking with alarm into his paternal heart.
Was not he himself a pirate? Had not the hundred and fifty thousand that
was coming to him had to be earned by somebody else? Money did not make
itself.

"Well," retorted Charlie, with a grim smile. "There's one thing to be
said for me. When I _do_ talk, I talk."

"And so at last you've begun to read?"

"I'm not going to be the ordinary millionaire. No fear! Make your mind
easy on that point. Besides, reading isn't so bad after all."

"And what about that house you were speaking of? You aren't going to
plant any of your options on me."

"We'll discuss that to-morrow. I must get back to my seat," said Charlie
firmly, moving away. "So long."

"I say," Mr. Prohack summoned him to return. "I'm rather curious about
the methods of you millionaires. Just when did you sign that cheque for
me? You only lent me the money as we were leaving the hotel."

"I made it out while I was talking to the mater and Sis in your box, of
course."

"How simple are the acts of genius--after they're accomplished!"
observed Mr. Prohack. "Naturally you signed it in the box."

As he rejoined his family he yawned, surprising himself. He began to
feel a mysterious fatigue. The effect of the Turkish bath, without
doubt! The remainder of the evening stretched out in front of him,
interminably tedious. The title of the play was misleading. He could not
smack his face. He wished to heaven he could.... And then, after the
play, the ball! Eliza might tell him to dance with her. She would be
quite capable of such a deed. And by universal convention her
suggestions were the equivalent of demands. Nobody ever could or would
refuse to dance with Eliza.... There she was, all her four limbs
superbly displayed, sweetly smiling with her enormous mouth, just as if
the relations between Blaggs and herself were those of Paul and
Virginia. The excited audience, in the professional phrase, was "eating"
her.

V

Mr. Prohack was really a most absurd person. _Smack Your Face_, when it
came