As the Prophet and the two kids approached this delightful abode, a white face appeared, gluing itself to the pane of an upper window.

"There's pater familias!" piped Capricornus. "Don't he look ill?"

As they mounted the flight of imitation marble steps the face disappeared abruptly.

"He's coming to let us in," said Capricornus. "You're sure you've brought the crab and all the rashes?"

"Quite sure."

"Because, if you haven't, I don't know whatever mater familias'll—"

At this moment the portal of the lodge was furtively opened about half an inch, and a very small segment of ashen-coloured human face, containing a large and apprehensive eye, was shown in the aperture.

"Are you alone?" said the hollow voice of Mr. Sagittarius.

"Quite, quite alone," said the Prophet, reassuringly.

"It's all right, pater familias!" cried Capricornus. "He's brought all the rashes and the first tooth and everything. I made him."

"I don't think he wanted to," added the little Corona, suddenly developing malice.

"I've taken this long journey, Mr. Sagittarius," said the Prophet, with a remnant of self-respect, "at your special request. Am I to be permitted to come in?"

"If you're sure you're quite alone," returned the sage, showing a slightly enlarged segment of face.

"I am quite sure—positive!"

At this the door was opened just sufficiently to admit the passage of one thin person at a time, and, in single file, the Prophet, Corona and Capricornus passed into the lodge.



CHAPTER XV

THE PROPHET CREATES A DIVERSION AT HIS OWN EXPENSE

On stepping into a small vestibule, paved with black and white lozenges, and fitted up with an iron umbrella stand, a Moorish lamp and a large yellow china pug dog, the Prophet found himself at once faced by Mr. Sagittarius, whose pallid countenance, nervous eye and suspicious demeanour plainly proclaimed him to be, as he had stated, very rightly and properly going about in fear of his life.

"Go to the schoolroom, my darlings," he whispered to his children. "Why, what have you there?"

"Choclets," said Capricornus.

"From the pretty lady, mulius pulchrum," added the little Corona.

"Who is a mulibus pulchrum, my love?" asked Mr. Sagittarius, before Capricornus had time to correct his sister's Latin.

"It was Miss Minerva," said the Prophet. "We happened to meet her."

"Indeed, sir. Run away, my pretties, and don't eat more than one each, or mater familias will not approve."

Then, as the little ones disappeared into the shadows of the region above, he added to the Prophet,—

"You've nearly been the death of Madame, sir."

"I'm sure I'm very sorry," said the Prophet.

"Sorrow is no salve, sir, no salve at all. Were it not for her books I fear we might have lost her."

"Good gracious!"

"Mercifully her books have comforted her. She is resting among them now. Madame is possessed of a magnificent library, sir, encyclopaedic in its scope and cosmopolitan in its point of view. In it are represented every age and every race since the dawn of letters; thousands upon thousands of authors, sir, Rabelais and Dean Farrar, Lamb and the Hindoos, Mettlelink and the pith of the great philosophers such as John Oliver Hobbes, Locke, Hume and Earl Spencer; the biting sarcasm of Hiny, the pathos of Peps, the oratorical master-strokes of such men as Gladstone, Demosthenes and Keir Hardie; the romance of Kipling, sir, of Bret Harte and Danty Rossini; the poetry of Kempis a Browning and of Elizabeth Thomas Barrett—all, all are there bound in Persian calf. Among these she seeks for solace. To these she flies in hours of anguish."

"Does she indeed?" said the Prophet, feeling thoroughly overwhelmed.

"She desires me to take you to her at once, sir, there to confer and"—he lowered his voice and trembled visibly—"to arrange measures for the protection of my life."

The Prophet found himself wishing that he had been less precipitate in covertly alluding to Sir Tiglath's long desire of assault and battery, but before he had time to wish anything for more than half a minute, Mr. Sagittarius had guided him ceremoniously across the hall and was turning the handle of a door that was decorated with black and scarlet paint.

"Here, sir," he whispered, "you will find Madame surrounded by the authors whom she loves, by their portraits, their biographies and their writings. Here she communes with the great philosophers, sir, the poets, the historians and the humourists of the entire world, from the earliest days down to this very moment—in Persian calf, sir."

He gazed awfully at the Prophet, and gently opened the door of this temple of the intellect.

The Prophet expected to find himself ushered into a gigantic chamber, lined from floor to ceiling with shelves that groaned beneath their burden of the literature of genius. Indeed he had, in fancy, beheld even the chairs and couches covered with stacks of volumes, the very floor littered with the choicest productions of the brains of the dead and living. His surprise was, therefore, very great when, on passing through the door, he beheld Madame Sagittarius reposing at full length upon a maroon sofa in a small apartment, whose bare walls, were entirely innocent of book-shelves. Indeed the only thing of the sort which was visible was a dwarf revolving bookcase which stood beside the sofa, and contained some twenty volumes bound, as Mr. Sagittarius had stated, in Persian calf, each of these volumes being numbered and adorned with a label on which was printed in letters of gold, "The Library of Famous Literature: Edited by Dr. Carter. Tasty Tit-bits from all Times."

"Madame, sir, in her library," whispered Mr. Sagittarius by the door. "She is absorbed, sir, and does not notice us."

In truth Madame Sagittarius did appear to be absorbed in thought, or something else, for her eyes were closed, her mouth was open, and a sound of regular breathing filled the little room.

"She is thinking out some problem, sir," continued Mr. Sagittarius. "She is communing with the mighty dead. Sophronia, my love, Sophronia, Capricornus has brought the gentleman according to your orders. Sophy! Sophy!"

His final utterances, which were somewhat strident caused Madame Sagittarius to come away from her communion with the mighty dead with a loud ejaculation of the nature of a snort combined with a hissing whistle, to kick up her indoor kid boots into the air, turn upon her right elbow, and present a countenance marked with patches of red and white, and a pair of goggling, and yet hazy, eyes to the intruders upon her intellectual exertions.

"Mr. Vivian has come, Sophronia, according to your directions."

Madame uttered a second snort, brought her feet to the floor, arranged her face in a dignified expression with one fair hand, breathed heavily, and finally bowed to the Prophet with majestic reserve and remarked, with the professional click,—

"I was immersed in thought and did not perceive your entrance. Mens invictus manetur. Be seated, I beg."

Here certain very elaborate contortions and swellings of her interesting countenance suggested that she was repressing a good-sized yawn, and she was obliged to rearrange her features with both hands before she could continue.

"Thought conquers matter, as Plauto—I should say as Platus very rightly obesrved."

"Quite so," assented the Prophet, trying to live up to the library, but scarcely succeeding.

"Even in the days of the great Juvenile," proceeded Madame, "to whose satires I owe much"—here she laid a loving hand upon Vol. 2 of the "Library of Famous Literature."—"Long ere the days when Lord Lytton and his Caxtons introduced us to the blessings of the printing press there were doubtless ladies who, like myself, could forget the treachery and the lies of men in silent communion with the brains of the departed. Far better to be Milton's 'Il Penserosero' than Lord Byron's 'L'Allegra!'"

To this pronounciamento, which was interrupted several times by more alarming contortions of the brain-worker's face, the Prophet replied with a vague affirmative, while Mr. Sagittarius whispered,—

"Her whole knowledge, sir, comes straight from there"—pointing towards the dwarf bookcase. "She brought it on the instalment system. Dr. Carter has made her what she is! That man, sir, deserves to be canonised. Eight guineas and a half, sir, and such a result!"

"Such a result!" the Prophet whispered back.

By this time Madame Sagittarius had apparently ceased to commune with the dead, for her striking face assumed a more normal expression of feminine bitterness as she realised who was before her, and she exclaimed sharply,—

"Oh, so you've come at last, Mr. Vivian! And pray what have you to say? What about the rashes? And what is this danger that threatens Mr. Sagittarius?"

"We'd better take the danger first, my dear," said Mr. Sagittarius, with grave anxiety.

"Very well. Not that it should be the most important to one who wears the toga virilibus!"

"True, my love. Still, to take it first will clear the ground, I think, and set me more at ease. Well, sir?"

Thus adjured, the Prophet resolved to make a clean breast of Sir Tiglath's declarations, and he therefore replied,—

"I thought it only right to wire to you as I did, having learnt that there is in London a gentleman, an eminent man, who has for five-and-forty years been seeking for Malkiel with the avowed intention of—of—"

"Oh what, sir, of what?" said Mr. Sagittarius with trembling lips.

"Of doing him violence," replied the Prophet, impressively.

"What is the gent's name?" said Mr. Sagittarius, in great agitation.

"His name! Nomen volens!" added Madame.

"That," said the Prophet, "I prefer not to say at present."

"But why should he desire to—?"

"Because you are a prophet."

"There, Jupiter!" cried Madame, with flushed spitefulness. "What have I always said! All prophets are what they call outsiders—hors d'oeuvres, neither more nor less."

"I know, my love, I know. But how should this gent recognise me for a prophet? I'm sure my dress, my manner, are those of an outside broker, as I have often told you, Sophy. How—"

"The gentleman has not yet recognised you," said the Prophet. "At the moment he believes you to be an American syndicate."

"Thank mercy!" ejaculated Mr. Sagittarius.

"But one can never tell," added the Prophet. "He might find out."

"Nonsense!" cried Madame at this juncture. "We might quite well have gone to the square yesterday as I always suspected. But you are so timid, Jupiter. Timeo Dan—Dan—well, Dan something or other, as Virgil so truly says."

"Cautious, Sophronia, only cautious, for your and the children's sakes!"

"I call a man who's afraid even when he's passing everywhere as an American syndicate a cowardly custard," rejoined Madame, who appeared to be suffering under that peculiar form of flushed irritability which is apt to follow on heavy thought, indulged in to excess in a recumbent position during the daytime. "There, that's settled. So now let us get to business. Kindly hand me your prophecy of last night, Mr. Vivian."

The Prophet drew from a breast pocket a sheet or two of notepaper, on which he had dotted down, in prophetic form, the events of the night before. Madame received it and continued,—

"Before perusing this report, Mr. Vivian, I should wish to be made acquainted with those particulars."

"Which ones?" said the Prophet.

"Of your grandmother's career."

"Oh, I—"

"Let us take them in order, please, and proceed parri passo. When was the old lady removed from the bottle?"

"Never," replied the Prophet, firmly. "Never."

An expression of incredulous amazement decorated the obstreperous features of Madame.

"Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Vivian, that she sucks it still?" she inquired.

"I mean what I say, that she has never been removed from it," returned the Prophet, with energy.

"Well, sir, she must be very partial to milk and Indian rubber, very partial indeed!" said Mr. Sagittarius. "Go on, my darling."

"Her first tooth, Mr. Vivian—when did she cut it?"

"She has no idea."

Madame began to look decidedly grim.

"Date of short-coating?" she rapped out.

"There was no date. She never wore a short-coat."

"Do you desire me to believe, Mr. Vivian, that the old lady has been going about in long clothes ever since she was born?" inquired Madame, with incredulous sarcasm.

"Most certainly I do," replied the Prophet.

"Then how does she get along, pray? Come! Come!"

"She has always worn long clothes," cried the Prophet, boldly standing up for his beloved relative, "and always will. You can take that from me, Madame Sagittarius. I know my grandmother, and I am ready to pledge my honour to it."

"Oh, very well. She must be a very remarkable lady. That's all I can say. When did she put her hair up?"

"Never. She has never put it up."

"She has never put her hair up!"

"No, never."

"You mean to say that your grandmother goes about in long clothes with her hair down in the central districts?" cried Madame in blank amazement.

"She has never put her hair up," answered the Prophet, with almost obstinate determination.

"Oh, well—if she prefers! But I wonder what the police are about!" retorted Madame. "And now the rashes?"

"There are none."

But at this Madame's temper—already somewhat upset by her prolonged communion with the mighty dead—showed symptoms of giving way altogether.

"Rubbish, Mr. Vivian!" she said, clicking loudly and passing with an almost upheaving jerk to her upper register! "I'm a mother and was once a child. Rubbish! I must insist upon knowing the number of the rashes."

"I assure you there are none."

"D'you wish me to believe that the old lady has gone about all her life in the Berkeley Square in long clothes and her hair down, with her lips to the bottle and never had a rash? Do you wish me to believe that, Mr. Vivian?"

"Yes, sir, do you wish Madame, a lady of deep education, sir, to believe that?" cried Mr. Sagittarius.

"I can only adhere to what I have said," answered the Prophet. "My grandmother has never been removed from the bottle, has never worn a short coat, has never put her hair up and has never had an epidemic in Berkeley Square."

"Then all I can say is that she's an unnatural old lady," cried Madame, with obvious temper, tossing her head and kicking out the kid boots, as if seized with the sudden desire to use them upon a human football. "And there's not many like her."

"There is no one like her, no one at all," said the Prophet with fervour.

"So I should suppose," cried Madame, forgetting the other questions as to the day of marriage, etc., in the vexation of the moment. "She must certainly be the bird of whom Phoenix wrote that rose from ashes in the days of the classics. Rarum avis indeed! Eh, Jupiter?"

"Very rarum, my dear, very indeed!" responded her husband, with imitative sarcasm. "An avis indeed, not a doubt of it."

"De Queechy should have known her," continued Madame. "He always loved everything out of the common. Well, and now for the prophecy. What is all this, Mr. Vivian?"

"The result of last night's observation," said the Prophet.

"Do you call that a cycloidal curve?" asked Madame, with a contralto laugh that shook the library. "Look, Jupiter!"

Mr. Sagittarius glanced over his wife's heaving shoulder.

"Very poor, my dear, very irregular indeed."

"It's the best I could do," said the Prophet, still politely.

"I daresay," replied Mr. Sagittarius. "I daresay. Where's your star-map?"

"I'm afraid I don't know," answered the Prophet. "I left it in the pomade."

"The pomade!"

"Yes, the butler's own special pomade, and it seems to have disappeared."

"Very careless, very careless indeed. Let's see—prophecy first, then how arrived at. 'Grandmother apparently threatened with some danger at night in immediate future. Great turmoil in the house during dark hours.' H'm! 'Some stranger, or strangers, coming into her life and causing great trouble and confusion, almost resulting in despair, and perhaps actually inducing illness.' H'm! H'm! We didn't arrive at any of this by our observations, did we, Sophronia?"

"Decidedly not," snapped Madame, haughtily.

"And now let's see how arrived at. H'm! H'm! Grandmother—ingress of Crab—conjunction of Scorpio with Serpens—moon in eleventh house. Yes, that's so. Jupiter in trine with Saturn—What's this? 'Crab dressed implies danger—undressed Crab much safer—attempted intervention failure—she's in a nice state now—it tried to keep her from it, but she was drawn right to it.' Right to what?"

"The Crab?"

"Of course she was drawn to it. She depends on the Crab these nights. But what does the rest mean?"

"The Crab was dressed."

"Dressed—what in?"

"I don't know," said the Prophet. "It didn't tell me."

Mr. Sagittarius and Madame exchanged glances.

"Explain yourself, Mr. Vivian, I beg," cried Madame in a somewhat excited manner. "How could the Crab be dressed?"

"I have wondered," said the Prophet, gazing at the couple before him with shining eyes. "But it was dressed last night, and that made it exceptionally dangerous in some way. Something seemed to tell me so. Something did tell me so."

"What told you?" inquired Madame, with more excitement and a certain respect which had been quite absent from her manner before.

"Something that came in the night. I don't know what it was. Light flashed from it."

"It sounds like a sort of comet, my darling," said Mr. Sagittarius, considerably perturbed. "We didn't observe that the Crab was specially dressed, did we?"

"It had nothing on at all when we saw it," said Madame with growing agitation. "But whatever was this comet that flashed light? That's what I want to get at."

"It was a dark thing that told me the Crab was dressed, that my grandmother had been with it and that its influence was inimical to her."

"A dark thing! That's not a comet!" said Mr. Sagittarius.

"It vanished with a flash of light into the square."

"At what time did you observe it, sir?" asked Mr. Sagittarius, while Madame leaned forward, gazing with goggling eyes at the Prophet.

"At exactly half-past one."

"Did it stay long?"

"A few minutes only—but it made an impression upon me that I can never forget."

It had apparently also made a very great impression upon Mr. and Madame Sagittarius, who remained for some seconds staring fixedly at the Prophet without uttering a word. At last Mr. Sagittarius turned to Madame and said in a voice that shook with seriousness,—

"Can it be, Sophronia, that prophets ought to live in the central districts? Can it really be that the nearer they are to the Circus, and even to the Stores—"

"O beatus illa!" interjected Madame upon the pinions of a sigh.

"Yes, Sophronia, the Stores, the more clearly is the knowledge of the future vouchsafed to them? If it should prove to be so!"

Madame stared again upon the Prophet with a fixity and strained inquiry which made him shift in his seat.

"If it should!" she repeated, upon the lowest note of her lower register, which sounded, at that solemn moment, like the keynote of a dreamer. Then, with a sudden change of manner, she cried sharply,—

"Jupiter, you must accompany this gentleman back to the square to-day."

The Prophet started. So did Mr. Sagittarius.

"But—" they cried simultaneously.

"And you must share his night watch."

"But, my darling—"

"Or I will," cried Madame. "Which is it to be?"

"Mr. Sagittarius!" exclaimed the Prophet.

"Very well," said Madame. "Let mine be the weary task to wait and watch at home. Fata feminus. The mystery of the dressed Crab must be unveiled. Should this mysterious visitant again vouchsafe a prophetic message, a practical prophet must be at hand to receive it. Jupiter, this gentleman is not practical. This report"—she struck the paper on which the Prophet had dotted down his notes—"is badly written. The cycloidal curve might have been made by a Board School child. The deductions drawn—deductio ad absurdibus—reveal no talent, none of the prophetic feu de joie at all. But this mystery of the dressed Crab may mean much. Jupiter, you will accompany this gentleman back to London and you will assist him practically at the telescope to-night."

"Very well, my love. I will risk the personal danger, for your and the children's—"

"But—but really—" began the Prophet. "I am very sorry, but—"

"Madame has spoken, sir," said Mr. Sagittarius, very solemnly.

"I know she has. But—yes, I know there are no buts in your dictionary, Madame, I know there aren't—but I have an engagement to-night that I have sworn—"

"What engagement, sir?" said Mr. Sagittarius, sternly. "You have sworn to us. You must know that."

"I have sworn to almost everyone," cried the distracted Prophet. "But this swear—I mean this oath must be kept before yours."

"Before ours, sir?"

"It comes on before eleven. I keep my oath to you after it. I manage the two, don't you see?"

"He will see that you manage the two, Mr. Vivian, I can assure you," said Madame, viciously. "Won't you, Jupiter?"

"Certainly, my dear. What is the oath, sir, that you place before ours?"

"An oath to Miss Minerva," returned the Prophet, beginning to feel reckless, firm in the conviction that it was henceforth his destiny to be the very sport of Fate.

"Ha!" cried Mr. Sagittarius. "The double life!"

"Who is Miss Minerva, pray?" said Madame, shooting a very penetrating glance upon her husband.

"Your husband can tell you that," replied the Prophet, by no means without guile.

"Jupiter," cried Madame, "what is the meaning of this? Who is this person?"

Mr. Sagittarius looked exceedingly uncomfortable.

"My dear," he began, "she is a young fe—that is, a young wo—I should say—"

"A fe! A wo! Explain yourself, Jupiter!"

"She is a lady, my love."

"A lady! Do I know her?"

"I believe not, my dear."

"And do you?"

"No, my darling. That is—that is—"

"Yes, I suppose!" said Madame, with a very violent click.

"I can hardly say, Sophronia, that, I can't indeed. I have met her, by accident, quite by accident I assure you, once or twice."

"Where?"

"At Jellybrand's. She goes there to fetch letters on the same day as I do."

Madame's very intellectual brow was over-clouded with storm. She turned upon the Prophet.

"And what of this person, Mr. Vivian?" she cried. "What of her and this oath?"

The Prophet, who was secretly very delighted with the diversion he had so cleverly created, hastened to reply,—

"I have promised most solemnly to meet her to-night at a house in the Zoological Gardens!"

"A house in the Zoological Gardens!"

"I mean at the Zoological House, the residence of Mrs. Vane Bridgeman, who is—"

But, at this point in his explanation, the Prophet was interrupted by both his hearers.

"The Jellybrand one!" cried Mr. Sagittarius.

"The prophets' patron!" vociferated Madame.



CHAPTER XVI

THE PROPHET RETURNS FROM THE MOUSE WITH TWO OLD AND VALUED FRIENDS

At these exclamations the Prophet started in some surprise.

"You know this lady?" he asked.

"By repute, sir," replied Mr. Sagittarius.

"Who does not?" cried Madame. "She built the 'Prophets' Rest' at Birchington."

"And the Mediums' Almshouses at Sunnington."

"And the 'Palmists' Retreat' at Millaby Bay."

"And the—"

"I see you know all about her," interposed the Prophet. "Well, she is giving a reception to-night at Zoological House and I have sworn to be there. But I shall get home by eleven. You will understand, however, that I cannot have the pleasure of entertaining Mr. Sagittarius during the evening under my own roof. I regret this extremely, but you see it is unavoidable."

To the Prophet's great surprise this lucid explanation was received by his hearers with a strange silence and a combined meditative, and even moony, staring which was to him inexplicable. Both Madame and Mr. Sagittarius seemed suddenly immersed in contemplation. They began, he thought, to look like Buddhists, or like those devoted persons who, in the times of the desert monks, remained for long periods posed upon pillows in sandy wastes musing upon Eternity. At first, as he met their fixed eyes, he fancied that they were, perhaps, falling into a trance, but presently the conviction seized him that they must be, on the contrary, busily thinking out some problem. He hoped fervently that he did not form part of it. At length the quivering silence was broken by Mr. Sagittarius.

"I might accompany you to Mrs. Bridgeman's, sir," he said to the Prophet. "Might I not, Sophronia?"

"Oh, but—" began the Prophet, very hastily.

"The lady has frequently pressed me to accept of her hospitality."

"Indeed!"

"For years she has been writing to me at Jellybrand's, under my real name of Malkiel the Second, you understand. She addresses me simply as the master.'"

"But do the postal authorities—"

"Not upon the envelope, sir, not upon the envelope."

"I see."

"Hitherto, true to myself, true to the principles of Malkiel the First, and to the instincts of Madame, I have declined her personal acquaintance. But there is no reason why you should not introduce me to the house as Mr. Sagittarius, no reason at all."

The Prophet knew only too well that there was not, but before he had time to go on trying to wriggle out of the complication, Madame struck in.

"Miss Minerva is to be present at this reception, I believe," she said sharply.

"Yes, she is," answered the Prophet, illumined by a ray of hope.

"Jupiter," said Madame, "I will accompany you and Mr. Vivian to the Zoological Gardens to-night. It is my sacred duty."

The Prophet groaned.

"But, my darling—"

"The reception over, I will assist you and Mr. Vivian at the telescope in the Berkeley Square. In your presence I can do so without departing from my principles, salvo pudoribus. Do not interrupt me, Jupiter, if you please. I have thought the matter out. The crisis in our fate is at hand. Upon the events of the next three nights depends our future. These mysterious messages of which Mr. Vivian speaks must be examined into by us upon the spot. This mystery of the dressed Crab must be made clear. A woman's intellect is needed. A woman's intellect shall not be wanting. Ill as I am, worn down by the occurrences of yesterday and by this gentleman's incessant telegrams, I will leave my books"—here she waved one hand towards the dwarf bookcase—"I will assume an appropriate neglige and my outdoor boots, a fichu and bonnet, and will accompany you at once to the Berkeley Square, there to confer and arrange the programme of the evening. Mrs. Bridgeman would fall down before us in worship could she know who we really are. As it is, Mr. Vivian will introduce us modestly as two old and valued friends. The time may be at hand when we need no longer hide ourselves beneath an alibi. Till then we must possess ourselves, and Mr. Vivian must possess us, in patience. Ill as I am, I will accompany you. To-night shall see me in the Zoological Gardens at my husband's side."

Before the prospect of this sublime self-sacrifice both Mr. Sagittarius and the Prophet were as men dumb. They said not a word. They only gazed—with a sort of strange idiotcy—at Madame as she rose, with an elaborate and studied feebleness, from the maroon couch and prepared to go upstairs to assume the appropriate neglige. Only when she was at her full height did the Prophet, rendered desperate by the terrible results of his own ingenuity, nerve himself to utter one last protest.

"I really do not think it would be quite according to the rules of etiquette which prevail in the central districts," he cried, "for a lady to spend the night in the butler's pantry of a comparative stranger, even when accompanied by her husband. It might give rise to talk in the square, and—"

"The butler's pantry, sir!" exclaimed Mr. Sagittarius. "Explain yourself, I beg."

"The telescope is there, and—"

"I have passed beyond the reach of etiquette," said Madame, looking considerably like Joan of Arc and other well-known heroines. "My duty lies plain before me. Of myself I should not have selected the Zoological Gardens and the butler's pantry of a comparative stranger as places in which to pass the night, even when accompanied by my husband. But my conscience—mens conscium recto—guides me and I will not resist it. I will assume my neglige and bonnet and will be with you in a moment."

So saying she majestically quitted the apartment.

The Prophet fell down upon the maroon sofa like a man smitten with paralysis. He felt suddenly old, and very weak. He tried to think, to consider how he could explain Madame Sagittarius to his grandmother—for she must surely now become aware of the presence of strangers in her pretty home—how he could arrange matters with Mr. Ferdinand, how he could apologise to a lady whom he had never yet seen for appearing at her house with two uninvited guests, how he could get rid of the Sagittariuses when the horrible night watch should be at an end and the frigid winter dawn be near. But his mind refused to work. His brain was a blank, containing nothing except, perhaps, a vague desire for sudden death. Mr. Sagittarius did not disturb his contemplation of the inevitable. Indeed, that gentleman also seemed meditative, and the silence lasted until the reappearance of Madame, in a brown robe—of a slightly tea-gown type—trimmed with green chiffon and coffee-coloured lace, a black bonnet adorned with about a score of imitation plums made in some highly-glazed material, a heavy cloak lined with priceless rabbit-skins, and the outdoor boots.

If the Prophet had found the journey to the Mouse a painful experience, what can be said of his feelings during the journey from that noble stream? Long afterwards he recalled his state of mind during the tramp across the Common among the broken crockery, the dust-heaps, the decaying vegetables and the occasional lurking rats, the journey in the train, the reembarkment upon the purple 'bus from the gentle eminence sloping towards the coal-yard, the long pilgrimage towards the central districts with his very outlying companions. He recalled the peculiar numbness that strove against the desperation of his thoughts, his feeble efforts to lay plans frustrated by a perpetual buzzing in his brain, his flitting visions of that gentle grandmother round whose venerable age and dignity he was about to group such peculiar personalities, and beneath whose roof he was about to indulge in such unholy prophetic practices. Long afterwards—but even then he could not smile as men so often smile when they look back on lost despairs!

He and his companions spoke but little together as they journeyed. Occasionally Madame and Mr. Sagittarius conversed in husky whispers, like brigands the Prophet thought, and the veiled click of Madame's contralto struck through the startled air. But mostly a silence prevailed—a silence alive with fate.

At the corner of Air Street they got out and began to walk down Piccadilly towards the Berkeley square. It was now evening. The lamps were lighted and the murmur of strolling crowds filled the gloomy air. Madame stared feverishly about her, excited by the press, the flashing hansoms and the gaily-illuminated shops. Once, as she passed Benoist's, she murmured "O festum dies!" and again, by the Berkeley, when she was momentarily jostled by a very large and umbrageous tramp who had apparently been celebrating the joys of beggary—"Acto profanus vulgam!" But generally she was silent, enwrapped, no doubt, in bookish thought. When, at length, they stood before the door of number one thousand she breathed a heavy sigh.

"Please," said the Prophet, in a trembling voice, "please enter quietly. My grandmother is very unwell."

"Ankles seems to be a very painful complaint, sir," said Mr. Sagittarius. "But Madame and self are not in the habit of creating uproar by our movements."

"No, no. Of course not. Still—on tiptoe if you don't mind."

"I cannot walk on tiptoe," said Madame, in a voice that sounded to the Prophet terrifically powerful. "The attitude is precarious and undignified. As the great Juvenile—"

"Yes, yes. Ah! that's it!"

He managed to get his key into the door and very gingerly opened it. Madame and Mr. Sagittarius stepped into the hall, followed closely by the Prophet, who was content on conveying them unobserved to the library.

"This way," he whispered. "This way. Softly! Softly!"

He began to steal, like a shadow, across the hall, and, impressed by his surreptitious manner, his old and valued friends instinctively followed his example. All three of them, then, with long steps and theatrical pauses, were stagily upon the move, when suddenly the door that led to the servants' quarters swung open and Mrs. Fancy Quinglet debouched into their midst, succeeded by Mr. Ferdinand, who carried in his hand a menu card in a silver holder. At the moment of their appearance the Prophet, holding his finger to his lips, was taking a soft and secret stride in the direction of the library door, his body bent forward and his head protruded towards the sanctum he longed to gain, and Madame and Mr. Sagittarius, true to the instinct of imitation that dwells in our monkey race, were in precisely similar attitudes behind him. The hall being rather dark, and the gait of the trio it contained thus tragically surreptitious, it was perhaps not unnatural that Mrs. Fancy should give vent to a piercing cry of terror, and that Mr. Ferdinand should drop the menu and crouch back against the wall in a hunched position expressive of alarm. At any rate, such were their actions, while—for their part—the Prophet and his two old and valued friends uttered a united exclamation and struck three attitudes that were pregnant with defensive amazement.

Having uttered herself, Mrs. Fancy, according to her invariable custom when completely terrified, displayed all the semblance of clear-sighted composure and explanatory discrimination. While Mr. Ferdinand remained by the wall, with his face to it and his large white hands spread out upon his shut eyes, the lady's maid advanced upon Madame, and, addressing herself apparently to some hidden universe in need of information, remarked in rather a piecing voice,—

"I say again, as I said afore, the house has been broke into and the robbers are upon us. I can't speak different nor mean other."

On hearing these words Madame's large and rippling countenance became suffused with indignant scarlet, and a preliminary click rang through the hall. The Prophet bounded forward.

"Hush, Fancy," he cried. "What are you saying?"

"What I mean, Master Hennessey. The house has been broke—"

"Hush! Hush! This lady and gentleman are—"

"Two old and valued friends—" boomed Madame.

"Two old and valued friends of mine. Mr. Ferdinand! Mr. Ferdinand, take your face from the wall, if you please. There is no cause for alarm. Now, Fancy—now!"

For Mrs. Fancy had, as usual, broken into tears on learning the reassuring truth, and was now displaying every symptom of distress and enervation. The Prophet, unable to calm her, was obliged to assist her upstairs and place her upon the landing, where he hurriedly left her uttering broken moans and murmurs, and repeating again and again her statement of affairs and assertion of inability to conceal the revealed obvious. On his return he found Madame, Mr. Sagittarius and Mr. Ferdinand grouped statuesquely in the hall as if to represent "Perturbation."

"Mr. Ferdinand," he said rather severely, "I did not expect this conduct of you, shrinking from guests in this extraordinary manner. A butler who shows terror at the sight of visitors does not conduce to the popularity of his employers."

"I beg pardon, sir. I was not prepared."

"Please be prepared another time. You will serve dinner for three to-night, very quietly, in the inner dining-room. I do not wish Mrs. Merillia to be disturbed in her illness, and—"

"If you please, sir, Mrs. Merillia feels herself so much better that she is coming down to dinner to-night."

"Coming down to dinner!" said the Prophet, aghast.

"Yes, sir. And she has asked in Sir Tiglath Butt and the Lady Julia Postlethwaite to join her. I was about to show Mrs. Merillia the menu, sir, when—"

"Good Heavens! Merciful Powers!" ejaculated the Prophet.

"Sir?"

"What on earth is to be done?" continued the Prophet, lost for the moment to all sense of propriety.

Mr. Ferdinand looked at the old and valued friends.

"I can't say, sir, I'm sure," he replied, pursing up his lips.

"What is the meaning—" began Mr. Sagittarius.

"I'm not aware that—" started Madame.

The Prophet darted to the library door and opened it.

"Pray, pray come in here," he hissed. "My grandmother! Softly!"

"But the old la—"

"Hush, please!"

"I must remark, Mr. Viv—"

"Tsh! Tsh! Mr. Ferdinand, wait in the hall. I shall want to speak to you in a moment."

"Yes, sir."

The Prophet closed the door and turned to this indignant visitors.

"This is terrible," he said. "Terrible!"

"Pray why?" cried Madame.

"Why," cried the Prophet, "why?"

He sought frantically for some excuse. Suddenly a bright idea occurred to him.

"Why," he said, impressively. "Because Sir Tiglath Butt, the gentleman who is coming to dinner, is the person who for five-and-forty years has been seeking Mr. Sagittarius with the firm intention of assaulting, perhaps of killing, him."

Mr. Sagittarius turned deathly pale, and made a movement as if to get out of the nearest window.

"This is a trap!" he stammered. "This is a rat-trap. This was planned."

"Really"—began the Prophet.

But Mr. Sagittarius did not heed the exclamation. Trembling very violently, he continued,—

"Sophy, my darling, you are in danger. Let us fly!"

And, clutching his wife by the arm, to the Prophet's unspeakable delight he endeavoured to lead, or rather to drag her to the door. But Madame now showed the metal she was made of.

"Jupiter," she exclaimed, in her deepest note, "if you are a Prophet you can surely at moments be also a man. Where is your toga virilibus?"

"I don't know, my love, I'm sure. Don't let us lose a moment. Come, my angel!"

"I shall not come," retorted Madame, whose leaping ambition had been fired by the sound of titled names. "The gentleman believes you to be an American syndicate."

"I know, my blessing, I know. But—"

"Very well. If you don't behave like one he will never suspect you."

The Prophet saw his chance slipping from him and hastened to interpose.

"He might divine the truth," he said. "One can never—"

But at this moment he was interrupted by Mr. Ferdinand who abruptly opened the door and observed,—

"If you please, sir, Mrs. Merillia has sent down orders that the police are to be fetched at once."

Mr. Sagittarius, now thoroughly unnerved, turned from white to grey.

"The police!" he vociferated. "Sophy, my angel, let us fly. This is no place for you!"

"The police!" cried the Prophet. "Why?"

"I believe it's Mrs. Fancy's doing, sir. If you would go to Mrs. Merillia, sir, I think—"

The Prophet rushed from the room and hastened upstairs four steps at a time. He found his beloved grandmother in a state of grave agitation, and Mrs. Fancy, in floods of tears, reiterating her statement that there were robbers in the house.

"Oh, Hennessey!" cried Mrs. Merillia, on his entrance, "thank God that you are come. There are burglars in the house. Fancy has just encountered them in the hall. Go for the police, my dearest boy. Don't lose a moment."

"My dear grannie, they're not burglars."

"I can't speak different, Master Hennessey, nor—"

"Then who are they, Hennessey? Fancy declares—"

"They are two—two—well, two old and valued friends of mine."

"Old and valued friends of ours!"

"Of mine, grannie. Fancy, pray don't make such a noise!"

"Fancy," said Mrs. Merillia, "you can go to your room and lie down."

"Yes, ma'am. I say again, as I said afore, the house has been broke into and the robbers—"

At this point the Prophet shut the door on the faithful and persistent creature, who forthwith carried her determination and sobs to an upper storey.

"Hennessey, what is all this? Who is really here?"

"Grannie, dear, only two friends of mine," replied the Prophet, trying to look at ease, and feeling like a criminal.

"Friends of yours? But surely then I know them. I thought I knew all your friends."

"So you do, grannie, all except—except just these."

"And they are old and valued, you say?"

"No, no—that is, I mean yes."

Mrs. Merillia was too dignified to ask any further questions. She lay back on her sofa, and looked at her grandson with a shining of mild reproach in her green eyes.

"Well, my dear," she said, "go back to your friends, but don't forget that Lady Julia and Sir Tiglath are dining here at half-past seven."

"Grannie," cried the Prophet, with a desperate feeling that Madame meant to stay, "you ought not to dine downstairs to-night. Let me send and put them off."

"No, Hennessey," she answered, with gentle decision. "I feel better, and I want cheering up. My morning was not altogether pleasant."

The Prophet understood that she was alluding to his questions, and felt cut to the heart. His home seemed crumbling about him, but he knew not what to do or what to say. Mrs. Merillia observed his agitation, but she did not choose to remark upon it, for she considered curiosity the most vulgar of all the vices.

"Go to your friends, dear," she said again. "But be in time for dinner."

"Yes, grannie."

The Prophet descended the stairs and met Mr. Ferdinand at the bottom.

"Am I to send for the police, sir?"

"No, no. I've explained matters."

"And about dinner, sir?"

"I'll tell you in a moment, Mr. Ferdinand," replied the Prophet, entering the library with the fixed intention of getting Madame and Mr. Sagittarius out of the house without further delay.

The tableau that met his eyes, however, was not reassuring. He found Madame, having laid aside her bonnet, and thrown the rabbit-skin cloak carelessly upon a settee, arranging her hair before a mirror, and shaking up the coffee-coloured lace fichu in a manner that suggested a permanent occupation of the house, while her husband, sunk in a deep armchair in an attitude of complete nervous prostration, was gazing dejectedly into the fire. When the Prophet entered, the latter bounded with alarm, while Madame turned round, a couple of hairpins in her mouth and both hands to the back of her head.

"Ah," she remarked, through the pins, "il a vous! I am happy to say that I have induced Mr. Sagittarius to assume his toga virilibus, and that we have, therefore, great pleasure in yielding to your thoughtful pressure—"

"My what?" said the Prophet, blankly.

"You thoughtful pressure, and accepting your urgent invite to dine here before proceeding to the Zoological Gardens and thence to the butler's pantry."

The Prophet tried not to groan while she emitted a pin and secured with it a wandering plait of raven hair.

"You're sure, sir," said Mr. Sagittarius, in a deplorable voice, "that the gentleman is convinced that I am really an American syndicate?"

The Prophet rang the bell. He could not trust himself to speak, and, when he looked at Madame's large and determined eyes, he knew that to do so would be useless.

Mr. Ferdinand appeared.

"Mr. Ferdinand," said the Prophet, "this lady and gentleman will join us at dinner to-night."

"Yes, sir," said Mr. Ferdinand, casting a glance of outraged prudery upon Mr. Sagittarius, who was attired in his usual morning costume, including spats.

"What's the matter, Mr. Ferdinand?" asked the Prophet, following that functionary's eyes. "Ha! He's not dressed!"

"No, sir!"

"Mr. Sagittarius," cried the Prophet, "you're not dressed!"

"Sir," cried that gentleman, "do you dare to accuse me of impropriety in a frock coat?"

"No, no. But for dinner. You can't possibly dine like that!"

"I have dined like this, sir, for the last twenty years. The architects and their wives—"

"I daresay. But unluckily there will be no architects and their wives at dinner to-night. Please stand up."

"Sir?"

"Kindly stand up. Mr. Ferdinand!"

"Yes, sir."

"Place your back against this gentleman's if you please—touching, touching! Don't wriggle away like that. Keep your heels to the ground while I fetch a sheet of notepaper. Don't move your heads either of you. I thought so. You're pretty much the same height. Mr. Ferdinand, you will lay out a white shirt and one of your black dress suits in my dressing-room at once. Madame, I regret that we must leave you for a few moments. Will you rest here? Allow me to place a cushion for your head. And here is Juvenal in the original."

So saying, the Prophet hurried Mr. Sagittarius from the room, driving Mr. Ferdinand, in a condition of elephantine horror, before him, and abandoning Madame to an acquaintance with the classics that she had certainly never achieved in the society of the renowned Dr. Carter.



CHAPTER XVII

MALKIEL THE SECOND IS MISTAKEN FOR A RATCATCHER

"If you tremble like that, of course it must look too big!" exclaimed the Prophet to Mr. Sagittarius, a quarter of an hour later. "Draw it in at the back."

Mr. Sagittarius, with shaking hands, drew in the waistcoat of Mr. Ferdinand, which hung in folds around his thin and agitated figure.

"That's better," said the Prophet. "They won't notice anything odd. But you've turned up your—Mr. Ferdinand's trousers!"

"They're too long, sir. You braced them too low for—"

"I braced them low on purpose," cried the Prophet in great excitement, "to cover the spats, since you can't get on Mr. Ferdinand's boots. Kindly turn them down."

"As to the spats, sir, the architects and their wives—"

"Mr. Sagittarius," exclaimed the Prophet, "I think it right to inform you that if you mention the architects and their wives again, I may very probably go mad. I don't say I shall, but I will not answer for myself. Have the goodness to turn them down and follow me."

Mr. Sagittarius obeyed, and followed the Prophet from the room with a waddling gait and a terrible sensation of having nothing on. The coat and trousers which he wore flapped about him as he descended the stairs in the wake of the Prophet, glancing nervously about him and starting at the slightest sound. In the library they found Madame, holding the great Juvenile upside down and looking exceedingly cross.

"Will you be good enough to come upstairs?" said the Prophet to her very politely, though his fingers twitched to strangle her. "I wish to present you to my grandmother, and dinner is just ready."

Madame rose with dignity.

"I am ready too," she said, with a click. "Semper paratis."

And, shaking up the fichu, she ascended the stairs. Outside the drawing-room door the Prophet, who seemed strangely calm, but who was in reality almost bursting with nervous excitement, paused and faced his old and valued friends.

"You will forgive my saying so, I hope," he whispered, "but my grandmother is not well and much conversation tires her. So we don't talk too much in her presence. Only just now and then, you understand."

And with this last injunction—futile, he knew as he gave it—he commended himself to whatever powers there be and opened the door.

Sir Tiglath had not yet arrived, but Lady Julia Postlethwaite was seated on a sofa by Mrs. Merillia, and was conversing with her about the Court, the dreadful amount of money a certain duke—her third cousin—had recently had to pay in Death Duties, the corrupt condition of society, and the absurd pretensions of the lower middle classes. Lady Julia was sensitive and a very grande dame. She wore her hair powdered, and had a slight cough and exquisite manners. Once a lady in waiting, she was now a widow, possessed a set of apartments in Hampton Court Palace, worshipped Queen Alexandra, and had scarcely ever spoken to anybody who moved outside of Court Circles. The Duke of Wellington was said to have embraced her when a child.

Mrs. Merillia and this lady looked up when the door opened, and Lady Julia paused midway in a sentence, of which these were the opening words,—

"The old duke wouldn't make it over, and so poor Loftus has to pay nearly a million to the Chancellor of the Excheq—"

"How d'you do, Lady Julia? Grannie, I have persuaded my friends, Mr. and Madame Sagittarius, to join us at dinner. Sir Tiglath Butt is most anxious to meet Mr. Sagittarius, who is a great astronomer. Let me—Madame Sagittarius, Mrs. Merillia—Mr. Sagittarius—Mrs. Merillia, my grandmother—Lady Julia Postlethwaite."

Mrs. Merillia, although taken completely by surprise, and fully conscious that her grandson had committed an outrage in turning an arranged and intimate quartette without permission into a disorganised sextette, bowed with self-possessed graciousness, and indicated a chair to Madame, who seated herself in it with that sort of defensive and ostentatious majesty which is often supposed by ill-bred people to be a perfect society manner. Mr. Sagittarius remained standing in his enormous suit, turning out his feet, over which Mr. Ferdinand's trousers rippled in broadcloth waves, in the first position. A slight pause ensued, during which the Prophet was uncomfortably affected by the behaviour of Madame, who gazed at the very neat and superior wig worn by Mrs. Merillia, and at that lady's charming silver grey damask gown, in a manner that suggested amazement tempered with indignation, her instant expression of these two sentiments being only held in check by a certain reverence which was doubtless inspired by the pretty room, the thick carpet, the ancestral pictures upon the walls, and the lofty bearing of Lady Julia Postlethwaite, who could scarcely conceal her very natural surprise at the extraordinary appearance of Mr. Sagittarius. As to Mrs. Merillia, although she was, in reality, near fainting with wonder at her grandson's escapade, she preserved an expression of gracious benignity, and did not allow a motion of her eyelids or a flutter of her fan to betray her emotion at finding herself the unprepared hostess of such unusual guests. The Prophet broke the silence by saying, in a voice that cracked with agitation,—

"I trust—I sincerely trust that we shall have a clement spring this year."

Lady Julia, at whom he had looked while uttering this original desire, was about to reply when Madame uttered a stentorian click and interposed.

"In the spring the young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love," she remarked, with the fictitious ease of profound ill-breeding.

No one dared to dispute the portentous statement, and she resumed majestically,—

"The Mouse is delicious in spring."

There was another dead silence, and Madame, turning with patronising and heavy affability towards Lady Julia, added,—

"Your ladyship doubtless loves the Mouse—Mus Pulcherrimo—in spring as I do?"

The Prophet felt as if he were being pricked by thousands of red-hot needles, and the perspiration burst out in beads upon his forehead.

"I am not specially fond of mice in spring, or indeed at any season," replied Lady Julia, with her slight, but very distinct and bell-like, cough.

"I said the Mouse, your ladyship," returned Madame, feeding upon this titled acquaintance with her bulging black eyes, and pushing the kid boots well out from under her brown skirt. "I observed that the Mouse was peculiarly delicious in the season of love."

"No mouse attracts me," said Lady Julia, coughing again and raising her fine eyebrows slightly. "I should much prefer to pass the spring without the companionship of any mouse whatever."

Both Madame and Mr. Sagittarius opened their lips to reply, but before they could eject a single word the door was opened by Mr. Ferdinand, who announced,—

"Sir Tiglath Butt."

Mr. Sagittarius started violently and upset a vase of roses, the astronomer rolled into the room with a very red face, and Mr. Ferdinand added,—

"Dinner is served."

Mrs. Merillia shook hands with Sir Tiglath and glanced despairingly around her. It was sufficiently obvious that she was considering how to arrange the procession to the dining-room.

"Hennessey," she began, "will you take Lady Julia? Sir Tiglath, will you"—she paused, but there was no help for it, she was obliged to continue—"take Mrs. Sagittarius? Let me introduce you, Sir Tiglath Butt—Mrs. Sagittarius. Mr. Sagittarius, will you take—"

"Mr. Sagittarius!" roared Sir Tiglath. "Where is he?"

That gentleman gathered Mr. Ferdinand's trousers up in both hands and prepared for instantaneous flight.

"Where is he?" bellowed Sir Tiglath, wheeling round with amazing rapidity for so fat a man. "Ha!"

He had viewed Mr. Sagittarius, who, grasping Mr. Ferdinand's suit in pleats, ducked his head like one wishing to be beforehand with violence and set the spats towards the door. Sir Tiglath advanced upon him.

"The old astronomer has heard the name of Sagittarius," he vociferated. "He has been informed that—"

"It's not true, sir," cried Mr. Sagittarius, pale with terror. "It is not true. I deny it. I am an Ameri—I mean I am not the American syndicate—you are in error, in absolute error. I swear it. I take the heavens to witness."

At this remarkable and comprehensive statement Mrs. Merillia and Lady Julia looked at each other in elegant amazement.

"What do you mean, sir?" exclaimed Sir Tiglath. "And why do you insult the sacred heavens, you an astronomer!"

"I am not an astronomer," cried Mr. Sagittarius, cringing in the voluminous waistcoat of Mr. Ferdinand. "I am an outside broker. I swear it. My dress, my manner proclaim the fact. Sophronia, tell the gentleman that I am an outside broker and that all Margate has recognised me as such."

"My husband states the fact," said Madame, in response to this impassioned appeal. "My husband brokes outside, and has done for the last twenty years. Collect yourself, Jupiter. Pray do not doff your toga virilibus in the presence of ladies!"

The terror of Mr. Sagittarius was such, however, that it is very doubtful whether he would not have proceeded thus to disrobe had not the Prophet, rendered desperate by the turn of events, abruptly leaped between Sir Tiglath and his old and valued friend and, gathering the outraged Lady Julia under his arm, exclaimed,—

"Pray, pray—we can discuss this matter more comfortably at dinner. Permit me, Lady Julia. Sir Tiglath, if you will kindly give your arm to Madame Sagittarius. Mr. Sagittarius, my grandmother."

So saying, he made a sort of flank movement, so adroitly conceived and carried out that, in the twinkling of an eye, he had driven Sir Tiglath to the side of Madame and hustled Mr. Sagittarius into the immediate neighbourhood of Mrs. Merillia. Nor had more than two minutes elapsed before the whole party found themselves—they scarce knew how—arranged around the dining table and being served with clear soup by Mr. Ferdinand and the astounded Gustavus, whose naturally round eyes began to take an almost oblong form as he attended to the wants of Mrs. Merillia's very unfamiliar guests, whose outlying demeanour and architectural manners evidently filled him with the most poignant dismay.

As to Mrs. Merillia and Lady Julia, the foregoing scene had so reduced them that they were almost betrayed into some hysterical departure from the rules of exquisite good breeding which they had unconsciously observed from the cradle. Indeed, the latter, strong in the belief that the terms outside broker and raving maniac were interchangeable, twice dropped her spoon into her soup-plate before she could succeed in lifting it to her mouth, and was unable to prevent herself from whispering to the Prophet,—

"Pray, Mr. Vivian, tell me the worst—is he absolutely dangerous?"

"No, no," whispered back the Prophet, reassuringly. "It's all his play."

"Play!" murmured Lady Julia, glancing at Mr. Sagittarius, who was holding back the right sleeve of Mr. Ferdinand's coat with his left hand in order to have the free use of his dinner limb.

"Yes," whispered the Prophet. "He's the most harmless, innocent creature. A child might stroke him. I mean he wouldn't hurt a child."

"Yes, but we are not children," said Lady Julia, still in great apprehension.

Meanwhile Sir Tiglath, concerned with his dinner, took no heed of Mr. Sagittarius for the moment, and that gentleman, slightly reassured, endeavoured to make himself agreeable to Mrs. Merillia.

"You are very pleasantly situated here, ma'am," he began.

Mrs. Merillia thought he meant because she was at his elbow, and answered politely,—

"Yes, very pleasantly situated."

"It is indeed a blessing to be within such easy reach of the Stores," added Mr. Sagittarius, finishing his soup, and permitting Mr. Ferdinand's sleeves to flow down once more over his hands.

"The Stores!" said Mrs. Merillia.

"O festum dies beatus illa!" ejaculated Madame, assuming an expression of profound and almost passionate sentiment. "Happy indeed the good lady who dwells in the central districts!"

She permitted a gigantic sigh to leave her bosom and to wander freely among the locks of those at the table. Sir Tiglath, who, on being assaulted by her learning, had shown momentary symptoms of apoplexy, now gave a loud grunt, while the Prophet, perceiving that his grandmother and Lady Julia were quite unequal to the occasion, hastily replied,—

"Yes, Berkeley Square is very convenient in may ways."

"Ah!" said Mr. Sagittarius, keeping a wary eye on Sir Tiglath and re-addressing himself to Mrs. Merillia, "the Berkeley Square. But if you lived in the one behind Kimmins's Mews, it would be quite another pair of boots, would it not, ma'am?"

Lady Julia, who was sitting next to Mr. Sagittarius, shifted her chair nearer to the Prophet, and whispered, "I'm sure he is dangerous, Mr. Vivian!" while Mrs. Merillia, in the greatest perplexity, replied,—

"The one behind Mr. Kimmins's Mews?"

"Ay, over against Brigwell's Buildings, just beyond the Pauper Lunatic Asylum."

Lady Julia turned pale.

"I daresay," answered Mrs. Merillia, bravely. "But I am not acquainted with the neighbourhood you mention."

"You know the Mouse?"

At this abrupt return to the subject of mice Lady Julia became really terrified.

"Be frank with me, Mr. Vivian," she whispered to the Prophet, under cover of boiled salmon; "is he a ratcatcher?"

"Good Heavens, no!" whispered back the Prophet. "He's—he's quite the contrary."

"But—"

"What mouse?" said Mrs. Merillia, endeavouring to seem pleasantly at ease, though she, too, was beginning to feel a certain amount of alarm at these strange beings' persistent discussion of the inhabitants of the wainscot. "Do you allude to any special mouse?"

"I do, ma'am. I allude to the Mouse that has helped to make Madame and self what we are."

Sir Tiglath began to roll about in his chair preparatory to some deliverance, and Mrs. Merillia, casting a somewhat agitated glance at her grandson, answered,—

"Really. I did not know that anything so small could have so much influence."

"It may be small, ma'am," said Mr. Sagittarius. "But to a sensitive nature it often seems gigantic."

"You mean at night, I suppose? Does it disturb you very much?"

"We hear it, ma'am, but it lulls us to rest."

"Indeed. That is very fortunate. I fear it might keep me awake."

"So we thought at first. But now we should miss it. Should we not, Sophronia?"

"Doubtless," replied Madame, arranging a napkin carefully over her fichu, and dealing rigorously with some mayonnaise sauce. "It has been our perpetual companion for many years, mus amicus humano generi."

Sir Tiglath swelled, and Mrs. Merillia responded,—

"I see, a pet. Is it white?"

"No, ma'am," returned Mr. Sagittarius, "it is a rich, chocolate brown except on wet days. Then it takes on the hue of a lead pencil."

"Indeed!" said Mrs. Merillia, trying nobly to remain social. "How very curious!"

"We worship it in summer," continued Mr. Sagittarius. "In the sultry season it soothes and calms us."

"Then it is quite tame?"

"At that time of year, but in winter nights it is sometimes almost wild."

"Ah, I daresay. They often are, I know."

"The architects and their wives love it as we do."

"Do they? How very fortunate!"

"We should hate to miss it even for a moment."

"Oh, Mr. Vivian!" whispered Lady Julia, "this is dreadful. I'm almost sure he's brought it with him."

"No, no. It's not alive."

"A dead mouse!"

"It's a river."

"A river! But he said it was a mouse."

"It's both. Mr. Sagittarius," added the Prophet, in a loud and desperate tone of voice, "you'll find this champagne quite dry. You needn't be afraid of it."

"Did you get it from by the rabbit shop, sir?" asked Mr. Sagittarius, lifting his glass. "I ordered a dozen in, only the day before yesterday."

Lady Julia began to tremble.

"I see," she whispered to the Prophet. "His mania is about animals."

Meanwhile the Prophet had made a warning face at Mr. Sagittarius, who suddenly remembered his danger and subsided, glancing uneasily at Sir Tiglath, whose intention of addressing him had been momentarily interfered with by a sweetbread masked in a puree of spinach.

Madame Sagittarius, assisted by food and dry champagne, was now—as the Prophet perceived with horror—beginning to feel quite at her ease. She protruded her elbows, sat more extensively in her chair, rolled her prominent eyes about the room as one accustomed to her state, and said, with condescension, to Lady Julia,—

"Is your ladyship to make one of the party at the Zoological Gardens to-night?"

Lady Julia, who now began to suppose that Mr. Sagittarius's crazy passion for animals was shared by his wife, gasped and answered,—

"Are you going to the Zoological Gardens?"

"Yes, to an assembly. It should be very pleasant. Do you make one?"

"I regret that I am not invited," said Lady Julia, rather stiffly.

Madame bridled, under the impression that she was scoring off a member of the aristocracy.

"Indeed," she remarked, with a click. "Yet I presume that your ladyship is not insensible to the charms of rout and collation?"

"I beg your pardon?" said Lady Julia, beginning to look like an image made of cast iron.

"I imagine that the social whirl finds in your ladyship a willing acolyte?"

"Oh, no. I go out very little."

"Indeed," said Madame, with some contempt. "Then you do not frequent the Palace?"

"The Palace! Do you mean the Crystal Palace?"

"Of Buckingham? You are not an amicas curiae?"

"I fear I don't catch your meaning."

"Does not your ladyship comprehend the Latin tongue?"

"Certainly not," said Lady Julia, who was born in an age when it was considered highly improper for a young female to have any dealings with the ancients. "Certainly not."

"Dear me!" said Madame, with pitying amazement. "You hear her ladyship, Jupiter?"

"I do, my angel. Madame is a lady of deep education, ma'am," said Mr. Sagittarius, turning to Mrs. Merillia, who had been listening to the foregoing cross-examination with perpetually-increasing horror.

"No decent female should understand Greek or Latin," roared Sir Tiglath at this point. "If she does she's sure to read a great deal that she's no business to know anything about."

At this challenge Madame's bulging brow was overcast with a red cloud.

"I beg to disagree, sir," she exclaimed. "In my opinion the Georgics of Horatius, Homer's Idyls and the satires of the great Juvenile—"

"The great what?" bellowed Sir Tiglath.

"The great Juvenile, sir."

"There never was a great juvenile, ma'am. Talent must be mellow before it is worth tasting, whatever the modern whipper-snapper may say. There never was, and there never will be, a great juvenile—there can only be a juvenile preparing to be great."

"Really, sir."

"I affirm it, madam. And as you seem so mighty fond of Latin, remember what Horace says—Qui cupit opatam cursu contingere metam, Multa tulit fecitque puer, sudavit et alsit. Oh-h-h-h!"

And Sir Tiglath flung himself back in his chair, puffing out his enormous cheeks and wagging his gigantic head at Madame who, for once in her life, seemed entirely at a loss, and unable to call to her assistance a single shred of learning from the library of Dr. Carter.

Having at last emerged from his Epicurean silence, the astronomer now proceeded to take the floor. Satisfied that he had laid a presuming female low, he swung round, as if on a pivot, to where Mr. Sagittarius was sitting in the greatest agitation, and roared,—

"And now, sir what is all this about your being an outside broker? I was distinctly informed by this gentleman only a night or two ago that you were a distinguished astronomer."

"I am betrayed!" cried Mr. Sagittarius, dropping the knife and fork which he had just picked up for the dissection of a lobster croquette. "I said this was a trap. I said it was a rat-trap from the first."

"I knew he must be a ratcatcher," whispered Lady Julia to the Prophet, who was about to rise from his seat and endeavour to calm his guest. "I was certain no one but a ratcatcher could talk in such a manner."

"He is not indeed! Mr. Sagittarius, pray sit down! You are alarming my grandmother."

"I can't help that, sir. I am not going to sit here, sir, and be slain."

"Tsh! Tsh! I merely informed Sir Tiglath the other evening that what Miss Minerva had told him about you was true."

"Miss Minerva!" cried Madame, glancing at her husband in a most terrible manner. "Miss Minerva!"

"Lady Enid Thistle, I mean," cried the Prophet, mentally cursing the day when he was born.

"Who's that?" exclaimed Madame, beginning to look almost exactly like Medusa.

"A young female who informed the old astronomer that your husband and an elderly female named Mrs. Bridgeman had for a long while been carrying on astronomical investigations together—"

"Carrying on together!" vociferated Madame. "Jupiter!"

"And that they had come to the conclusion that there was probably oxygen in certain of the holy fixed stars. Oxygen, so the elderly female—"

"Oxygen in an elderly female!" cried Madame, in the greatest excitement. "Jupiter, is this true?"

Mr. Sagittarius was about to bring forward a flat denial when the Prophet, leaning behind the terrified back of Lady Julia, hissed in his ear,—

"Say yes, or he'll find out who you really are!"

"Yes," cried Mr. Sagittarius, in a catapultic manner.

Madame began to show elaborate symptoms of preparation for a large-sized fit of hysterics. She caught her breath five or six times running in a resounding manner, heaved her bosom beneath the green chiffon and coffee-coloured lace, and tore feebly with both hands at a large medallion brooch that was doing sentry duty near her throat.

"Pray, pray, Madame," exclaimed the Prophet, who was now near his wits' end. "Pray—"

"How can I pray at table, sir?" she retorted, suddenly showing fight. "You forget yourself."

"Oh, Hennessey," said poor Mrs. Merillia, "what does all this mean?"

"Nothing, grannie, nothing except that Mr. Sagittarius is a very modest man and does not care to acknowledge the greatness of his talents. Pray sit down, Mr. Sagittarius. Here is the ice pudding. Madame, I am sure you will take some ice. Mr. Ferdinand!"

"Sir?"

"The ice to Madame Sagittarius instantly!"

Mr. Ferdinand, who was trembling in every limb at having to assist at such a scene in his dining-room, which had hitherto been the very temple of soft conversation and the most exquisite decorum, advanced towards Madame, clattering the flat silver dish, and causing the frozen delicacy that the cook had elegantly posed upon it to run first this way and then that as if in imitative agitation.

"I cannot," sobbed Madame, beginning once more to catch her breath. "At such a moment food becomes repulsive!"

"I assure you our cook's ice puddings are quite delicious; aren't they, grannie?"

"I have no idea, Hennessey," said Mrs. Merillia, who was so upset by the extraordinary scene at which she was presiding in the character of hostess, that she mechanically clutched the left bandeau of her delightful wig, and set it quite a quarter of an inch awry.

"Try it, Madame," cried the Prophet. "I implore you to try it."

Thus adjured Madame detached a large piece of the agile pudding with some difficulty, and subsided into a morose silence, while her husband sat with his eyes fixed imploringly upon her, totally regardless of his social duties. As both Mrs. Merillia and Lady Julia were by this time thoroughly unnerved, and Sir Tiglath was once more immersed in his food, the whole burden of conversation fell upon the Prophet, who indulged in a feverish monologue that lasted until the end of dinner. What he talked about he could never afterwards certainly remember, but he had a vague idea that he discussed the foreign relations of England with Madagascar, the probable future of Poland, the social habits of the women of Alaska, the prospects of tobacco culture in West Meath, and the effect that imported Mexicans would be likely to produce upon the natural simplicity of such unsophisticated persons as inhabit Lundy Island or the more remote districts of the Shetlands. When the ladies at length rose to leave the dining-room his brain was in a whirl and he had little doubt that his temperature was up to 104. Nevertheless his mind was still active, was indeed preternaturally acute for the moment, and he saw in a flash the impossibility of leaving Madame Sagittarius alone with his grandmother and Lady Julia. As they got up from their seats he therefore took out his watch and said,—

"Dear me! It is later than I had supposed. I am afraid we ought to be starting for Zoological House. Mrs. Bridgeman will be expecting us."

"Certainly, sir, certainly!" said Mr. Sagittarius, with all the alacrity of supreme cowardice, and casting a terror-stricken glance towards Sir Tiglath, who was glowering at him with glassy eyes above a glass of port. "Mrs. Bridgeman will be expecting us!"

"I will assume my cloak," said Madame, fiercely. "Jupiter!"

"My darling!"

"Kindly seek my furs."

"Certainly, my love," replied Mr. Sagittarius, darting eagerly from the apartment to fetch the rabbit-skins.

"Lady Julia, I hope you will forgive us," said the Prophet, with passionate contrition. "If I had had the slightest idea that we should have the pleasure of seeing you to-night, of course I should have given up this engagement. But it is such an old one—settled months ago—and I have promised Mrs. Bridgeman so faithfully that—"

"The old astronomer will go with you," cried Sir Tiglath at this moment, swallowing his glass of port at a gulp, and rolling out of his chair.

The Prophet turned cold, thinking of Miss Minerva, who would be present at Mrs. Bridgeman's living her secret double life. It was imperative to prevent the astronomer from accompanying them.

"I did not think you knew Mrs. Bridgeman, Sir Tiglath," the Prophet began, while Mrs. Merillia and Lady Julia stood blankly near the door, trying to look calm and dignified while everyone was ardently preparing to desert them.

"The old astronomer must know her before the evening is one hour more advanced. He must question her regarding the holy stars. He must examine her and this Sagittarius, who claims to be an outside broker and yet to have discovered oxygen in the fixed inhabitants of the sacred heavens. My cloak!"

The last words were bellowed at Gustavus, who rushed forward with Sir Tiglath's Inverness.

The Prophet lowed his head, and metaphorically, threw up the sponge.

"Lady Julia," said Mrs. Merillia, in a soft voice that slightly trembled, "let us go upstairs."

The two old ladies bowed with tearful dignity, and retired with a sort of gentle majesty that cut the Prophet to the heart.

"One moment, if you please!" he said to his guests.

And he darted out of the room and leaped up the stairs. He found Mrs. Merillia and Lady Julia just about to dispose themselves side by side upon a sofa near the fire. They turned and looked at him with reproachful doves' eyes.

"Grannie—Lady Julia!" he exclaimed, "I implore your forgiveness. Pardon me! Appearances are against me, I know. But some day you may understand how I am placed. My position is—my—my situation—I—you—do not wholly condemn me! Wait—wait a few days, I implore you!"

He rushed out of the room.

The two old ladies seated themselves upon the sofa, and tremblingly spread abroad their damask skirts. They looked at each other in silence, shaking their elegant heads. Then Mrs. Merillia said, in a fluttering voice,—

"Oh, Julia, you were a lady in waiting to Her Majesty, you were kissed by the great Duke—tell me—tell me what it all means!"

"Victoria," replied Lady Julia, "it means that your grandson has fallen into the clutches of a dangerous and determined ratcatcher."

And then the two old ladies mingled their damask skirts and their lace caps and wept.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE SILLY LIFE

"Call a cab for Sir Tiglath, Mr. Ferdinand," whispered the Prophet—"a four-wheeler with a lame horse. I'll take both Mr. and Madame Sagittarius in the brougham."

"Must the horse be lame, sir?"

"Yes. I absolutely decline to encourage the practice of using good horses in four-wheeled cabs. It's a disgrace to the poor animals. It must be a very lame horse."

"Yes, sir."

And Mr. Ferdinand, standing upon the doorstep, whistled to the night.

Strange to say, in about two minutes there appeared round the corner the very same cabman who had conveyed the Prophet and Lady Enid to the astronomer's on the previous day, driving the very same horse.

"This horse will do admirably," said the Prophet to Mr. Ferdinand.

"He isn't lame, sir."

"P'r'aps not; but he knows how to tumble down. Sir Tiglath, here is a cab for you. We shall go in the brougham. Zoological House, Regent's Park, is the direction. Let me help you in, Madame."

As the Prophet got in to sit bodkin between his old and valued friends, he whispered to the footman,—

"Tell Simkins to drive as fast as possible. We are very late."

The footman touched his hat. Just as the carriage moved off, the Prophet protruded his head from the window, and saw the astronomer rolling into the four-wheeler, the horse of which immediately fell down in a most satisfactory manner.

There was no general conversation in the brougham, but the Prophet, who was obliged to sit partly on Madame, and partly on Mr. Sagittarius and partly on air, occasionally heard in the darkness at his back terrible matrimonial whisperings, whose exact tenor he was unable to catch. Once only he heard Madame say sibilantly and with a vicious click,—

"I might have known what to expect when I married a Prophet—when I passed over the pons asinoribus to give myself to a monstram horrendo."

To this pathetic heart-cry Mr. Sagittarius made a very prolonged answer. The Prophet knew it was prolonged because Mr. Sagittarius always whispered in such a manner as to tickle the nape of his neck. But he could not hear anything except a sound like steam escaping from a small pipe. The steam went on escaping until the brougham passed through a gate, rolled down a declivity, and drew up before an enormous mansion whose windows blazed with light.

"Is this the Zoological Gardens?" inquired Madame in a stern voice. "Is this the habitation of the woman Bridgeman?"

"I suppose this is Zoological House," replied the Prophet, sliding decorously off Madame's left knee in preparation for descent.

"My darling! my love!" said Mr. Sagittarius. "I swear upon the infant head of our Capricornus that Mrs. Bridgeman and I are—"

"Enough!" cried Madame. "Jam satus! Be sure that I will inquire into this matter."

The carriage door was opened and, with some struggling, the Prophet and his two valued friends emerged and speedily found themselves in a very large hall, which was nearly full of very large powdered footmen. In the distance there was the sound of united frivolities, a band of twenty guitars thrumming a wilful seguidilla. Roses bloomed on every side, and beyond the hall they beheld a vision of illuminated vistas, down which vague figures came and went.

Evidently when Mrs. Bridgeman let herself go she let herself go thoroughly.

Mr. Sagittarius gazed about him with awe-struck amazement, but Madame was equal to the occasion. She cast the rabbit-skins imperially to a neighbouring flunkey, arranged her hair and fichu before a glass, kicked out her skirt with the heel of one of the kid boots, nipped the green chiffon into prominence with decisive fingers, and then, turning to the Prophet with all the majesty of a suburban empress, said in a powerful voice,—

"Step forward, I beg. J'ai pret."

The Prophet, thus encouraged, stepped forward towards an aperture that on ordinary days contained a door, but that now contained a stout elderly lady, with henna-dyed hair, a powdered face, black eyebrows and a yellow gown, on which rested a large number of jewelled ornaments that looked like small bombs. At this lady's elbow stood a footman with an exceedingly powerful bass voice, who shouted the names of approaching guests in a manner so uncompromising as to be terrific. Each time he so shouted the stout lady first started and then smiled, the two operations succeeding one another with almost inconceivable rapidity and violence.

"What name, sir?" asked the footman of the Prophet, bending his powdered head till it was only about six feet two inches from the floor.

"Mr. Hennessey Vivian," replied the Prophet, hesitating as to what he should add.

"Mr. Hemmerspeed Vivian!" roared the footman. "What name, Madame?" (to Madame Sagittarius).

"Mr. and Madame Sagittarius of Sagittarius Lodge, the Mouse!" replied the lady majestically.

"Mr.—and Madame—Segerteribus—of—Segerteribus—Lodge, the Mouse!" bawled the footman.

The stout lady, who was Mrs. Vane Bridgeman, started and smiled.

"Delighted to see you, Mr. Segerteribus!" she said to the Prophet.

The Prophet hastened to explain through the uproar of twenty guitars.

"Mr. Vivian is my name. I think Miss Minerva Partridge—"

Mrs. Bridgeman started and smiled.

"Of course," she exclaimed. "Of course. You are to be kind enough to introduce me some day to Mr. Sagi—Sagi—something or other, and I am to introduce him to Sir Tiglath Butt, when Sir Tiglath Butt has been introduced to me by dear Miss Partridge. It is all to work out beautifully. Yes, yes! Charming! charming!"

"I have ventured to bring Mr. and Madame Sagittarius with me to-night," said the Prophet.

Mrs. Bridgeman started and smiled.

"They are my old and valued friends, and—and here they are."

"Delighted! delighted!" said Mrs. Bridgeman, speaking in a confused manner through the guitars. "How d'you do, Mr. Sagittarius?"

And she shook hands warmly with a very small and saturnine clergyman decorated with a shock of ebon hair, who was passing at the moment.

"Biggle!" said the little clergyman.

Mrs. Bridgeman started and smiled.

"Biggle!" repeated the little clergyman. "Biggle!"

The guitars rose up with violence, and all the hot, drubbing passion of Bayswater being Spanish.

"Yes, indeed, I so agree with you, dear Mr. Sagittarius," said Mrs. Bridgeman to the little clergyman.

"Biggle!" the little clergyman cried in a portentous voice. "Biggle! Biggle!"

"What does he mean?" whispered Mrs. Bridgeman to the Prophet. "How does one?"

"I think that is his name. These are Mr. and Madame Sagittarius."

Mrs. Bridgeman started and smiled.

"Biggle—of course," she said to the little clergyman, who passed on with an air of reliant self-satisfaction. "Delighted to see you," she added, this time addressing the Prophet's old and valued friends. "Ah! Mr. Sagi—Sagi—um—I have heard so much of you from dear Miss Minerva."

The wild, high notes of a flute, played by a silly gentleman from Tooting, shrilled through the tupping of the guitars, and Mr. Sagittarius, trembling in every limb, hissed in Mrs. Bridgeman's ear,—

"Hush, ma'am, for mercy's sake!"

Mrs. Bridgeman started and forgot to smile.

"My loved and honoured wife," continued Mr. Sagittarius, in a loud and anxious voice, "more to me than any lunar guide or starry monitor! Madame Sagittarius, a lady of deep education, ma'am."

"Delighted!" said Mrs. Bridgeman, making a gracious grimace at Madame, who inclined herself stonily and replied in a sinister voice,—

"It is indeed time that this renconter took place. Henceforth, ma'am, I shall be ever at my husband's side, per fus et nefus—et nefus, ma'am."

"So glad," said Mrs. Bridgeman. "I have been longing for this—"

"Mr. Bernard Wilkins!" roared the tall footman.

Mr. Sagittarius started and Mrs. Bridgeman did the same and smiled.

"Bernard Wilkins the Prophet!" Mr. Sagittarius exclaimed. "From the Rise!"

"Mrs. Eliza Doubleway!" shouted the footman.

"Mrs. Eliza!" cried Mr. Sagittarius, in great excitement. "That's the soothsayer from the Beck!"

"Madame Charlotte Humm!" yelled the footman.

"Madame Humm!" vociferated Mr. Sagittarius, "the crystal-gazer from the Hill!"

"Professor Elijah Chapman!" bawled the footman.

"The nose-reader!" piped Mr. Sagittarius. "The nose-reader from the Butts!"

"Verano!" screamed the footman, triumphantly submerging the flute and the twenty guitars. "Verano!"

"The South American Irish palmist from the Downs! My love," said Mr. Sagittarius, in a cracking voice, "we are in it to-night, we are indeed; we are fairly and squarely in it."

Madame began to bridle and to look as ostentatious as a leviathan.

"And if we are, Jupiter!" she said in a voice that rivalled the footman's—"if we are, we are merely in our element. They needn't think to come over me!"

"Hush, my love! Remember that—"

"Dr. Birdie Soames!" interposed the vibrant bass of the footman.

"The physiognomy lady from the Common!" said Mr. Sagittarius, on the point of breaking down under the emotion of the moment. "Scot! Scot! Great Scot!"

Mrs. Bridgeman was now completely surrounded by a heterogeneous mass of very remarkable-looking people, among whom were peculiarly prominent an enormously broad-shouldered man, with Roman features and his hair cut over his brow in a royal fringe, a small woman with a pointed red nose in bead bracelets and prune-coloured muslin, and an elderly female with short grizzled hair, who wore a college gown and a mortar-board with a scarlet tassel, and who carried in one hand a large skull marked out in squares with red ink. These were Verano, the Irish palmist from the Downs; Mrs. Eliza Doubleway, the soothsayer from Beck; and Dr. Birdie Soames, the physiognomy lady from the Common. Immediately around these celebrities were grouped a very pale gentleman in a short jacket, who looked as if he made his money by eating nothing and drinking a great deal, a plethoric female with a mundane face, in which was set a large and delicately distracted grey eye; and a gentleman with a jowl, a pug nose, and a large quantity of brass-coloured hair about as curly as hay, which fell down over a low collar, round which was negligently knotted a huge black tie. This trio comprised Mr. Bernard Wilkins, the Prophet from the Rise; Madame Charlotte Humm, the crystal-gazer from the Hill; and Professor Elijah Chapman, the nose-reader from the Butts. No sooner was the news of the arrival of these great and notorious people bruited abroad through the magnificent saloons of Zoological House than Mrs. Bridgeman's guests began to flock around them from all the four quarters of the mansion, deserting even the neighbourhood of the guitars and the inviting seclusion of the various refreshment-rooms. From all sides rose the hum of comment and the murmur of speculation. Pince-nez were adjusted, eyeglasses screwed into eyes, fingers pointed, feet elevated upon uneasy toes. Pretty girls boldly trod upon the gowns of elderly matrons in the endeavour to draw near to Mrs. Bridgeman and her group of celebrities; youths pushed and shoved; chaperons elbowed, and old gentlemen darted from one place to another in wild endeavours to find an inlet through the press. And amid this frantic scramble of the curious, the famous members of the occult world stood, calmly conscious of their value and in no wise upset or discomposed. Verano stroked his Roman features, and ran his large white hand through his curly fringe; Dr. Birdie Soames tapped her skull; Mrs. Eliza Doubleway played with her bead bracelets; Mr. Bernard Wilkins and Madame Charlotte Humm conversed together in dreamy murmurs; while Professor Elijah Chapman shook his brass-coloured hair till it fell forward over his variegated shirt-front, and glanced inquiringly at the multitudes of anxious noses which offered themselves to his inspection beneath the glare of the electric lights.

Mr. and Madame Sagittarius, completely overlooked in the throng, elbowed, trampled upon, jogged from behind and prodded from before, gazed with a passion of bitter envy at their worshipped rivals, who were set in the full blaze of success, while they languished in the outer darkness of anonymous obscurity.

"O miseris hominum men—don't set your feet on me, sir, if you please!" cried Madame. "O pectorae caec—ma'am, I beg you to take your elbow from my throat this minute!"

But even her powerful and indignant organ was lost in the hubbub that mingled with the wild music of the guitars, to which was now added the tinkle of bells and the vehement click of a round dozen of castanets, marking the bull-fighting rhythm of a new air called "The Espada's Return to Madrid."

"Jupiter!" she gurgled. "I shall be suff—"

"Mr. Amos Towle!" roared the footman savagely.

"The great medium from the Wick!"

"Towle the seer!"

"Amos Towle, the famous spiritualist!"

"Mr. Towle who materialises!"

"The celebrated Towle!"

"The great and only Towle!"

"Oh, is it the Towle?"

"I must see Towle!"

"Where is he? Oh, where is Towle?"

"Towle who communicates with the other world!"

"Towle the magician!"

"Towle the hypnotist!"

"Towle the soothsayer!"

"The magnetic Towle!"

"The electric Towle!"

"We must—we must see Towle!"

Such were a very few of the exclamations that instantly burst forth upon the conclusion of the footman's announcement. The elbowing and trampling became more violent than ever, and Mrs. Bridgeman was forced—from lack of room—to forego her society start, though she was still able to indulge in her society smile, as she bowed, with almost swooning graciousness, to a short, perspiring, bald and side-whiskered man in greasy broadcloth, who looked as if he would have been quite at home upon the box of a four-wheeled cab, as indeed he would, seeing that he had driven a growler for five-and-twenty years before discovering that he was the great and only Towle, medium, seer, and worker-of-miracles-in-chief to the large and increasing crowd that lives the silly life.

"Oh, Mr. Towle—charmed, delighted!" cried Mrs. Bridgeman. "I was so afraid—How sweet of you to come out all this way from your eyrie at the Wick! You'll find many friends—dear Madame Charlotte—the Professor—Mrs. Eliza—they're all here. And Miss Minerva, too! Your greatest admirer and disciple!"

At this moment the crowd, wild in its endeavour to touch the inspired broadcloth of the great Towle, surged forward, and the Prophet was driven like a ram against the left side of his hostess.

"I beg—your—pard—" he gasped; "but could you tell—me—where Miss Minerv—erva—is? I special—ly want to—to—"

"I think she's with Eureka in tea-room number 1," replied Mrs. Bridgeman. "Oh, dear! Near the band. Oh, dear! Oh, my gown! Oh! So sweet of you to come, Mrs. Lorrimer! Just a few interesting people! Oh, gracious mercy! Oh, for goodness' sake!"

She was thrust against a new arrival, and the Prophet, bringing his shoulders vigorously into play, according to the rules of Rugby football, presently found himself out in the open and free to wander in search of Miss Minerva, whom he was most anxious to encounter before the arrival of Sir Tiglath Butt, which must now be imminent, despite the marked disinclination of his horse to proceed at the rate of more than half a mile an hour.

The Prophet abandoned Mr. and Madame Sagittarius to their fate, thankful, indeed, to be rid for a moment of their prophetic importunity.

Following the gasped directions of Mrs. Bridgeman, he made towards the guitars, threading a number of drawing-rooms, and passing by the doors of various mysterious chambers which were carefully curtained off in a most secret manner. Here and there he saw groups of people—men in extraordinary coats and with touzled masses of hair, women in gowns made of the cheapest materials and cut in the most impossible fashions. Some wore convolvulus on their heads, ivy-leaves, trailing fuchsia, or sprigs of plants known only to suburban haberdashers; others appeared boldly in caps of the pork-pie order, adorned with cherry-coloured streamers, clumps of feathers that had never seen a bird, bunches of shining fruits, or coins that looked as if they had just emerged from the seclusion of the poor-box. Thread gloves abounded, and were mostly in what saleswomen call "the loud shades"—bright scarlet, marigold yellow, grass green or acute magenta. Mittens, too, were visible covered with cabalistic inscriptions in glittering beadwork. Not a few gentlewomen, like Madame, trod in elastic-sided boots, and one small but intrepid lady carried herself boldly in a cotton skirt topped with a tartan blouse "carried out" in vermilion and sulphur colour, over which was carelessly adjusted a macintosh cape partially trimmed with distressed-looking swansdown. Here and there might be seen some smart London woman, perfectly dressed and glancing with amused amazement at the new fashions about her; here and there a well set-up man, with normal hair and a tie that would not have terrified Piccadilly. But for the most part Mrs. Bridgeman's guests were not quite usual in appearance, and, indeed, were such as the Prophet had never gazed upon before.