matter-of-course probity in
all money concerns had made him something of an autocrat in connection
with these trusts. If Soames thought this or thought that, one had
better save oneself the bother of thinking too. He guaranteed, as it
were, irresponsibility to numerous Forsytes of the third and fourth
generations. His fellow trustees, such as his cousins Roger or Nicholas,
his cousins-in-law Tweetyman and Spender, or his sister Cicely's
husband, all trusted him; he signed first, and where he signed first
they signed after, and nobody was a penny the worse. Just now they were
all a good many pennies the better, and Soames was beginning to see
the close of certain trusts, except for distribution of the income from
securities as gilt-edged as was compatible with the period.

Passing the more feverish parts of the City toward the most perfect
backwater in London, he ruminated. Money was extraordinarily tight;
and morality extraordinarily loose! The War had done it. Banks were
not lending; people breaking contracts all over the place. There was a
feeling in the air and a look on faces that he did not like. The
country seemed in for a spell of gambling and bankruptcies. There
was satisfaction in the thought that neither he nor his trusts had
an investment which could be affected by anything less maniacal than
national repudiation or a levy on capital. If Soames had faith, it was
in what he called "English common sense"--or the power to have things,
if not one way then another. He might--like his father James before
him--say he didn't know what things were coming to, but he never in his
heart believed they were. If it rested with him, they wouldn't--and,
after all, he was only an Englishman like any other, so quietly
tenacious of what he had that he knew he would never really part with
it without something more or less equivalent in exchange. His mind was
essentially equilibristic in material matters, and his way of putting
the national situation difficult to refute in a world composed of human
beings. Take his own case, for example! He was well off. Did that do
anybody harm? He did not eat ten meals a day; he ate no more than,
perhaps not so much as, a poor man. He spent no money on vice; breathed
no more air, used no more water to speak of than the mechanic or the
porter. He certainly had pretty things about him, but they had given
employment in the making, and somebody must use them. He bought
pictures, but Art must be enc