ttle.

"Come along, dad. Be a sport. Anyhow, let's ask the girl."

"Do you know what my answer to blackmail is?" Mr. Prohack blandly
enquired.

"No."

"My answer is the door. Drop the subject entirely. Or sling your
adventurous book."

Mr. Prohack was somewhat startled to see Charlie walk straight out of
the bedroom. A disturbing suspicion that there might be something
incalculable in his son was rudely confirmed.

He said to himself: "But this is absurd."

III

That morning the Prohack bedroom seemed to be transformed into a sort of
public square. No sooner had Charlie so startlingly left than Machin
entered again.

"Dr. Veiga, sir."

And Dr. Veiga came in. The friendship between Mr. Prohack and his
picturesque quack had progressed--so much so that Eve herself had begun
to twit her husband with having lost his head about the doctor.
Nevertheless Eve was privately very pleased with the situation, because
it proved that she had been right and Mr. Prohack wrong concerning the
qualities of the fat, untidy, ironic Portuguese. Mr. Prohack was
delighted to see him, for an interview with Dr. Veiga always meant an
unusual indulgence in the sweets of candour and realism.

"This is my wife's doing, no doubt," said Mr. Prohack, limply shaking
hands.

"She called to see me, ostensibly about herself, but of course in fact
about you. However, I thought she needed a tonic, and I'll write out the
prescription while I'm here. Now what's the matter with you?"

"No!" Mr. Prohack burst out, "I'm hanged if I'll tell you. I'm not going
to do your work for you. Find out."

Dr. Veiga examined, physically and orally, and then said: "There's
nothing at all the matter with you, my friend."

"That's just where you're mistaken," Mr. Prohack retorted. "There's
something rather serious the matter with me. I'm suffering from grave
complications. Only you can't help me. My trouble is spiritual. Neither
pills nor tonics can touch it. But that doesn't make it any better."

"Try me," said Dr. Veiga. "I'm admirable on the common physical
ailments, and by this time I should have been universally recognised as
a great man if common ailments were uncommon; because you know in my
profession you never get any honour unless you make a study of diseases
so rare that nobody has them. Discover a new disease, and save the life
of some solitary nigger who brought it to Liverpool, and you'll be a
baronet in a fortnight and a member of all the E