He was fairly launched. "It's the blind folly of it! In the
days before the war it was different. Then there was
abundance. A little grabbing or cornering was all to the
good. All to the good. It prevented things being used up too
fast. And the world was running by habit; the inertia was
tremendous. You could take all sorts of liberties. But all
this is altered. We're living in a different world. The
public won't stand things it used to stand. It's a new
public. It's--wild. It'll smash up the show if they go too
far. Everything short and running shorter--food, fuel,
material. But these people go on. They go on as though
nothing had changed. . . . Strikes, Russia, nothing will warn
them. There are men on that Commission who would steal the
brakes off a mountain railway just before they went down in
it. . . . It's a struggle with suicidal imbeciles. It's--!
But I'm talking! I didn't come here to talk Fuel."
"You think there may be a smash-up?"
"I lie awake at night, thinking of it."
"A social smash-up."
"Economic. Social. Yes. Don't you?"
"A social smash-up seems to me altogether a possibility. All
sorts of people I find think that," said the doctor. "All
sorts of people lie awake thinking of it."
"I wish some of my damned Committee would!"
The doctor turned his eyes to the window. "I lie awake too,"
he said and seemed to reflect. But he was observing his
patient acutely--with his ears.
"But you see how important it is," said Sir Richmond, and
left his sentence unfinished.
"I'll do what I can for you," said the doctor, and considered
swiftly what line of talk he had best follow.
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