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.