anchester defaulting in its interest
payments. Can you?" And he looked round and paused for a reply, and no
reply came. Nobody dared to boast himself capable of conceiving
Manchester's default.

Towards the end of the arduous day Mr. Prohack departed from the City,
leaving behind him an immense reputation for financial sagacity, and a
scheme of investment under which he could utterly count upon a modest
regular income of L17,000 per annum. He was sacrificing over L5,000 per
annum in order to be free from an investor's anxieties, and he reckoned
that his peace of mind was cheap at a hundred pounds a week. This detail
alone shows to what an extent the man's taste for costly luxuries had
grown.

Naturally he arrived home swollen. Now it happened that Eve also, by
reason of her triumph in regard to the house in Manchester Square, had
swelled head. A conflict of individualities occurred. A trifle, even a
quite pleasant trifle! Nothing that the servants might not hear with
advantage. But before you could say 'knife' Mr. Prohack had said that he
would go away for a holiday and abandon Eve to manage the removal to
Manchester Square how she chose, and Ere had leapt on to the challenge
and it was settled that Mr. Prohack should go to Frinton-on-Sea.

Eve selected Frinton-on-Sea for him because Dr. Veiga had recommended it
for herself. She had a broad notion of marriage as a commonwealth. She
loved to take Mr. Prohack's medicines, and she was now insisting on his
taking her watering-places. Mr. Prohack said that the threatened great
strike might prevent his journey. Pooh! She laughed at such fears. She
drove him herself to Liverpool Street.

"You may see your friend Lady Massulam," said she, as the car entered
the precincts of the station. (Once again he was struck by the words
'your friend' prefixed to Lady Massulam; but he offered no comment on
them.)

"Why Lady Massulam?" he asked.

"Didn't you know she's got a house at Frinton?" replied Mrs. Prohack.
"Everybody has in these days. It's the thing."

She didn't see him into the train, because she was in a hurry about
butlers. Mr. Prohack was cast loose in the booking-hall and had a fine
novel sensation of freedom.

II

Never since marriage had he taken a holiday alone--never desired to do
so. He felt himself to be on the edge of romance. Frinton, for example,
presented itself as a city of romance. He knew it not, knew scarcely any
English seaside, having always mana