Mr. Prohack

by Arnold Bennett

He yielded without reserve to its unique invitation. But some time elapsed before he could recover from the unquestionable fact that he was still within a quarter of a mile of Piccadilly Circus.

From the explanations of the attendant and from the precise orders which he had received from Dr. Veiga regarding the right method of conduct in a Turkish bath, Mr. Prohack, being a man of quick mind, soon devised the order of the ceremonial suited to his case, and began to put it into execution. At first he found the ceremonial exacting. To part from all his clothes and to parade through the mosque in attire of which the principal items were a towel and the key of his valuables (adorning his wrist) was ever so slightly an ordeal to one of his temperament and upbringing. To sit unsheltered in blinding steam was not amusing, though it was exciting. But the steam-chapel (as it might be called) of the mosque was a delight compared to the second next chapel further on, where the woodwork of the chairs was too hot to touch and where a gigantic thermometer informed Mr. Prohack that with only another fifty degrees of heat he would have achieved boiling point.

He remembered that it was in this chamber he must drink iced tonic water in quantity. He clapped his streaming hands clammily, and a tall, thin, old man whose whole life must have been lived near boiling point, immediately brought the draught. Short of the melting of the key of his valuables everything possible happened in this extraordinary chamber. But Mr. Prohack was determined to shrink from naught in the pursuit of idleness.

And at length, after he had sat in a less ardent chapel, and in still another chapel been laid out on a marble slab as for an autopsy and, defenceless, attacked for a quarter of an hour by a prize-fighter, and had jumped desperately into the ice-cold lake and been dragged out and smothered in thick folds of linen, and finally reposed horizontal in his original alcove,—then he was conscious of an inward and profound conviction that true, perfect, complete and supreme idleness had been attained. He had no care in the world; he was cut off from the world; he had no family; he existed beatifically and individually in a sublime and satisfied egotism.

But, such is the insecurity of human organisms and institutions, in less than two minutes he grew aware of a strange sensation within him, which sensation he ultimately diagnosed as hunger. To clap his hands was the work of an instant. The oncoming attendant recited a catalogue of the foods at his disposal; and the phrase "welsh rarebit" caught his attention. He must have a welsh rarebit; he had not had a welsh rarebit since he was at school. It magically arrived, on an oriental tray, set on a low Moorish table.

Eating the most wonderful food of his life and drinking tea, he looked about and saw that two of the unoccupied sofas in his alcove were strewn with garments; the owners of the garments had doubtlessly arrived during his absence in the chapels and were now in the chapels themselves. He lay back; earthly phenomena lost their hard reality....

When he woke up the mosque was a pit of darkness glimmering with sharp points of electric light. He heard voices, the voices of two men who occupied the neighbouring sofas. They were discoursing to each other upon the difficulties of getting good whiskey in Afghanistan and in Rio de Janeiro respectively. From whiskey they passed to even more interesting matters, and Mr. Prohack, for the first time, began to learn how the other half lives, to such an extent that he thought he had better turn on the lamp over his head. Whereupon the conversation on the neighbouring sofas curved off to the English weather in late autumn.

Then Mr. Prohack noticed a deep snore. He perceived that the snore originated in a considerable figure that, wrapped in white and showing to the mosque only a venerable head, was seated in one of the huge armchairs which were placed near the entrance to every alcove. It seemed to him that he recognised the snore, and he was not mistaken, for he had twice before heard it on Sunday afternoons at his chief club. The head was the head of Sir Paul Spinner. Mr. Prohack recalled that old Paul was a devotee of the Turkish bath.

Now Mr. Prohack was exceedingly anxious to have speech with old Paul, for he had heard very interesting rumours of Paul's activities. He arose softly and approached the easy-chair and surveyed Sir Paul, who in his then state looked less like a high financier and more like something chipped off the roof of a cathedral than anything that Mr. Prohack had ever seen.

But Paul did not waken. A bather plunged into the pool with a tremendous splash, but Paul did not waken. And Mr. Prohack felt that it would be contrary to the spirit of the ritual of the mosque to waken him. But he decided that if he waited all night he would wait until old Paul regained consciousness.