"Thank you, sir. I think I'll be getting along, sir."
"Have you told Mrs. Prohack?"
"I thought I'd best leave that to Machin, sir."
Mr. Prohack waved a hand, thoughtful. He heard Carthew leave. He heard Dr. Veiga arrive, and then he heard Dr. Veiga leaving, and rushed to the dining-room door.
"Veiga! A moment. Come in. Everything all right?"
"Of course. Absolutely normal. But you know what these young husbands are. I can't stop unless you're really ill, my friend."
"I'm worse than really ill," said Mr. Prohack, shutting the door. "I'm really bored. I'm surrounded by the most interesting phenomena and I'm really bored. I've taken to heart all your advice and I'm really bored. So there!"
The agreeable, untidy, unprofessional Portuguese quack twinkled at him, and then said in his thick, southern, highly un-English voice: "The remedy may be worse than the disease. You are bored because you have no worries, my friend. I will give you advice. Go back to your Treasury."
"I cannot," said Mr. Prohack. "I've resigned. I found out that my friend Hunter was expecting promotion in my place."
"Ah, well!" replied Dr. Veiga with strange sardonic indifference. "If you will sacrifice yourself to your friends you must take the consequences like a man. I will talk to you some other time, when I've got nothing better to do. I am very busy, telling people what they already know." And he went.