Page:HG Wells--secret places of the heart.djvu/101

Rh on scientific lines even less than the owners. They try to think that fuel production can carry an unlimited wages bill and the owners try to think that it can pay unlimited profits, and when I say; ‘This business is something more than a scramble for profits and wages; it’s a service and a common interest,’ they stare at me——” Sir Richmond was at a loss for an image. “Like a committee in a thieves’ kitchen when someone has casually mentioned the law.”

“But will you ever get your Permanent Commission?”

“It can be done. If I can stick it out.”

“But with the whole Committee against you!”

“The curious thing is that the whole Committee isn’t against me. Every individual is....”

Sir Richmond found it difficult to express. “The psychology of my Committee ought to interest you.... It is probably a fair sample of the way all sorts of things are going nowadays. It’s curious.... There is not a man on that Committee who is quite comfortable within himself about the particular individual end he is there to serve. It’s there I get them. They pursue their own ends bitterly and obstinately I admit, but they are bitter and obstinate because they pursue them against an internal opposition—which is on my side. They are terrified to think, if once they stopped fighting me, how far they might not have to go with me.”