“Or hosses.”

“That there Board of Agriculture,” put in the farmer, “is always settin’ up to know us farmers’ business better than we d’know it ourselves.  Grow wheat—­must we?  All very well, an’ for my country’s good I’m willin’ enough, provided it can be done at a profit.  Will Government guarantee that? . . .  No, brother Pamphlett:  what you say about your callin’, I says about mine.  ’Business as usual’—­ that’s my word:  an’ let Obed here be a good son to his mother an’ bide at home, defyin’ all the Germans in Christendom.”

Mr Pamphlett, then, had spent his week-end in rural comfort, and with the consciousness of being useful—­a steadying influence in a household threatened by youthful restlessness, which (Heaven knew) might so easily turn to recklessness.  His wife, too, was devotedly attached to her sister, whose heart had always been liable to palpitations.  But he realised at sight of the letter, which had been lying so long in the box, that a phrase is not everything:  that “business as usual,” while it might serve as a charm or formula against panic in the market-place, and even sustain in private many a doubting soul accustomed to take things on trust, was an incantation something less than adequate to calm the City of London, or the Bank directors and their confidential clerks, who maybe had been working in a frenzy through Sunday and Bank Holiday in their closed offices at headquarters.  For a moment Mr Pamphlett realised this, and it gave him a scare.  In the act of opening the letter he cast his eyes around on the chance that a telegram had followed the letter, demanding to know the cause that took him from his post at this crisis.  But there was no telegram.  The envelope held two enclosures.  He scanned them hurriedly:  the blood came back to his face, and he was a man again.

The first enclosure merely acknowledged, in conventional words, the receipt of certain returns posted by him last Friday.  The second ran—­

New Bank Premises:  Polpier Branch.

Dear Sir,—­With reference to the above, the Board has had under
consideration your letter of the 23rd ult.; and directs me to
say that, in the present unsettled situation abroad, and the
consequent need of strict watchfulness over capital expenditure
(however small), it may be wise to defer the issuing of tenders,
as suggested by you, until further notice.  The Board has, in
its confidence, entrusted you with almost complete discretion in
this matter; and possibly you may find it difficult, at this
juncture, to delay matters as suggested.  If so, please
advise.—­

          
                                                Yours faithfully,

                             Walter P. Schmidt,

                             Managing Director.

So that was all right!  It might defer building operations, but it need not defer his dealing with Nanjivell, his own tenant, who paid nothing.  He could turn Nanjivell out, and then—­well, whenever the Bank chose to start building, the Directors (having gone so far) would no doubt consider the length of time the premises had been standing idle.