All I
care for is my interest. I want to be absolutely sure that my interest
will tumble automatically into my bank on fixed dates. No other
consideration touches me. I'm not a gambler. I'm not a usurer.
Industrial development leaves me cold, and if I should ever feel any
desire to knit the Empire closer together I'll try to do it without
making a profit out of it. At the moment all I'm after is certain, sure,
fixed interest. Hence--Government securities, British Government or
Colonial! Britain is of course rotten to the core, always was, always
will be. Still, I'll take my chances. I'm infernally insular where
investment is concerned. There's one thing to be said about the British
Empire--you do know where you are in it. And I don't mind some municipal
stocks. I even want some. I can conceive the smash-up of the British
Empire, but I cannot conceive Manchester 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.
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