“At least I thought so then, and have done till to-day. Prophets—so my father believed, and so Madame—must be connected with the suburbs or with outlying districts. They must not, indeed they cannot, be properly prophetic within the radius. A central atmosphere would reduce them to the level of the conjuror or the muscular suggestionist. Malkiel the First, my father, was born himself in Peckham, and met my mother when coming through the rye.”
He brushed aside a tear that flowed at this almost rustic recollection, and continued—
“Yet Madame was wishful, and I was wishful too, that the children—if we had any—should not grow up Eastern. It was a natural and a beautiful desire, sir, was it not?”
“Oh, very,” replied the Prophet, considerably confused.
“The habits and manners of the East, you see, sir, are not always in strict accordance with propriety. Are they?”
Before the Prophet had time to realise that this question was merely rhetorical, he began—
“From what Professor Seligman says in his The Inner History of Baghdad, I feel sure—”
“Nor are the customs of the East quite what many a clergyman would approve of,” continued Malkiel. “Yet even this was not what weighed most with Madame.”
“What was it then?” inquired the Prophet, deeply interested.
“Sir, it was the Eastern language.”
“Ah!”
“Could we let our children learn to speak it? Could we bear to launch them in life, handicapped, weighed down by such a tongue? Could we do this?”
Again the Prophet mistook the nature of the question, and was led to reply—
“Certainly English children speaking only Arabic might well be at some loss in ordinary conver—”
“We could not, sir. It was impossible. So we resolved to go to the north of London and to avoid Whitechapel at whatever cost.”
“Whitechapel!” almost cried the Prophet.
“This determination it was, sir, that eventually led our steps to the borders of the River Mouse.”
“Oh, really!”
“You know it, sir?”
“Not personally.”
“But by repute, of course?”
“No doubt, no doubt,” stammered the Prophet, who had in fact never before heard of this celebrated flood.
“That poor governess, sir, last August—you recollect?”
“Ah, indeed!” murmured the Prophet, a trifle incoherently.
“And then the mad undertaker in the autumn,” continued Malkiel, with conscious pride; “he floated past our very door.”
“Did he really?”
“Singing his swan song, no doubt, poor feller, as Madame said after she read about it in the paper. There were the grocer’s twins as well, just lately. But they will be fresh in your memory.”
Before the Prophet had time to state whether this was so or not Malkiel proceeded—
“Well, sir, as soon as Madame and I had come to the Mouse we resolved that we could do no better than that. It was salubrious, it was retired, and it was N.”
“You said—?”
“N., sir.”
“But what is en?”
“Sir?”
The Prophet had grown very red, but he was seized by the desperation that occasionally attacks ignorance, and renders it, for a moment, determinedly explicit.
“I ask you what does en mean? I am, I fear, a very ill-informed person, and I really don’t know.”
“Think of an envelope, sir,” said Malkiel, with gentle commiseration. “Well, are you thinking?”
The Prophet grew purple.
“I am—but it is no use. Besides, why on earth should I think of an envelope? I beg you to explain.”
“North, sir, the northern postal district of the metropolis. Fairly simple that—I think, sir.”
“N.!” cried the illuminated Prophet. “I see. I was thinking of en all the time. I beg your pardon. Please go on. N.—of course!”
Malkiel concealed a smile, just sufficiently to make its existence for an instant vitally prominent, and continued—
“By the Mouse we resolved to build a detached residence such as would influence suitably the minds of the children—should we have any. For we had resolved, sir, by that time that with me the Almanac should cease.”
Here Malkiel leaned forward upon the deal table and lowered his voice to an impressive whisper.
“Yes, sir, it had come to that. We all have our ambitions and that was mine.”
“Good Heavens!” said the Prophet. “Malkiel’s Almanac cease! But why? Such a very useful institution!”
“Useful! More than that, sir, sublime! There’s nothing like it.”
“Then why let it cease?”
“Because the social status of the prophet, sir, is not agreeable to myself or Madame. I’ve had enough of it, sir, already, and I’m barely turned of fifty. Besides, my father would have wished it, I feel sure, had he lived in these days. Had he seen Sagittarius Lodge, the children, and how Madame comports herself, he would have recognised that the family was destined to rise into a higher sphere than that occupied by any prophet, however efficient. Besides, I will not deceive you, I have made money. In another ten years’ time, when I have laid by sufficient, I tell you straight, sir, that I shall go out of prophecy, right out of it.”
“Then your Capricor—that is your son—will not carry on the—”
“Capricornus a prophet, sir!” cried Malkiel. “Not if Madame and I know it. No, sir, Capricornus is to be an architect.”
As Malkiel pronounced the last words he flung his black overcoat wide open with an ample gesture, thrust one hand into his breast, and assumed the fixed and far-seeing gaze of a man in a cabinet photograph. He seemed lost to his surroundings, and rapt by some great vision of enchanted architects, busy in drawing plans of the magic buildings of the future ages. The Prophet felt that it would be impious to disturb him. Malkiel’s reverie was long, and indeed the two prophets might well have been sitting in Jellybrand’s parlour now, had not a violent sneeze called for the pink assistance of the flight of storks, and brought the sneezer down to the level of ordinary humanity.
“Yes,
