Prohack's body had retired to bed four hours earlier than in fact it
did, Mr. Prohack would have slept instantly and with ease. Now, despite
delicious contact with the pillow, he could not 'get off.' And his mind,
influenced by his body, grew restless, then excited, then distressingly
realistic. His mind began to ask fundamental questions, questions not a
bit original but none the less very awkward.

"You've had your first idle day, Mr. Prohack," said his mind
challengingly instead of composing itself to slumber. "It was organised
on scientific lines. It was carried out with conscientiousness. And look
at you! And look at me! You've had a few good moments, as for example at
the Turkish bath, but do you want a succession of such days? Could you
survive a succession of such days? Would you even care to acquire a
hundred and fifty thousand pounds every day? You have eaten too much and
drunk too much, and run too hard after pleasure, and been too much
bored, and met too many antipathetic people, and squandered too much
money, and set a thoroughly bad example to your family. You have been
happy only in spasms. Your health is good; you are cured of your malady.
Does that render you any more contented? It does not. You have
complicated your existence in the hope of improving it. But have you
improved it? No. You ought to simplify your existence. But will you? You
will not. All your strength of purpose will be needed to prevent still
further complications being woven into your existence. To inherit a
hundred thousand pounds was your misfortune. But deliberately to
increase the sum to a quarter of a million was your fault. You were
happier at the Treasury. You left the Treasury on account of illness.
You are not ill any more. Will you go back to the Treasury? No. You will
never go back, because your powerful commonsense tells you that to
return to the Treasury with an income of twenty thousand a year would be
grotesque. And rather than be grotesque you would suffer. Again,