H G Wells

The Secret Places of the Heart H G Wells

Book Excerpt: aymanagers, oil profiteers, financial adventurers. . . . "He was fairly launched. "It's the blind folly of it! In thedays before the war it was different. Then there wasabundance. A little grabbing or cornering was all to thegood. All to the good. It prevented things being used up toofast. And the world was running by habit; the inertia wastremendous. You could take all sorts of liberties. But allthis is altered. We're living in a different world. Thepublic won't stand things it used to stand. It's a newpublic. It's--wild. It'll smash up the show if they go toofar. Everything short and running shorter--food, fuel, material. But these people go on. They go on as thoughnothing had changed. . . . Strikes, Russia, nothing will warnthem. There are men on that Commission who would steal thebrakes off a mountain railway just before they went down init. . . . 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?"Read Mor