“Right, Mr. Sagittarius,” replied the young librarian whose memory had again become excellent. “But Miss Minerva is coming at three-thirty.”
“Has she bespoke the parlour, Frederick Smith?”
“Yes, Mr. Sagittarius.”
“Then she can’t have it. That’s all. Jellybrand’s must abide the full consequences of my betrayal. Go forward, Frederick Smith.”
The young librarian went forward towards a door of deal and ground glass which he threw open with some ceremony.
“The parlour, gents,” he said.
“After you, sir, after you,” said Malkiel the Second, making a side step and bringing his feet together in the first position.
“No, no,” rejoined the Prophet, gently drawing the sage to the front, and inserting him into the parlour in such an ingenious manner that he did not perceive the journey of a second half sovereign from the person of the Prophet to that of the young librarian, who thereafter closed the deal and ground glass door, and returned to the counter, whistling in an absent-minded manner, “I’m a Happy Millionaire from Colorado.”
CHAPTER III
THE TWO PROPHETS PARTAKE OF “CREAMING FOAM.”
“And now, sir,” said Malkiel the Second, pointing to a couple of cane chairs which, with the table, endeavoured, rather unsuccessfully, to furnish forth the parlour at Jellybrand’s, “now sir, what do you want with me?”
As he spoke he threw his black overcoat wide open, seated himself on the edge of one of the chairs in a dignified attitude, and crossed his feet—which were not innocent of spats—one over the other.
The Prophet was resolved to dare all, and he, therefore, answered boldly—
“Malkiel the Second, I wish to speak to you as one prophet to another.”
At this remark Malkiel started violently, and darted a searching glance from beneath his blonde eyebrows at Hennessey.
“Do you live in the Berkeley Square, sir,” he said, “and claim to be a prophet?”
“I do,” said Hennessey, with modest determination.
Malkiel smiled, a long and wreathed smile that was full of luscious melancholy and tragic sweetness.
“The assumption seems rather ridiculous—forgive me,” he exclaimed. “The Berkeley Square! Whatever would Madame say?”
“Madame?” said the Prophet, inquiringly.
“Madame Malkiel, or Madame Sagittarius, as she always passes.”
“Your wife?”
“My honoured lady,” said Malkiel, with pride. “More to me almost than any lunar guide or starry monitor. What, oh, what would she say to a prophet from the Berkeley Square?”
He burst into hollow laughter, shaking upon the cane chair till its very foundations seemed threatened as by an earthquake, and was obliged to apply the flight of storks to his eyes before he could in any degree recover his equanimity. At length he glanced up with tears rolling down his cheeks.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said. “But what can you know of prophecy in such a fashionable neighbourhood, close to Grosvenor Square and within sight, as one may say, of Piccadilly? Oh, dear, oh, dear!”
“But really,” said the Prophet, who had flushed red, but who still spoke with pleasant mildness, “what influence can neighbourhood have upon such a superterrestrial matter?”
“Did Isaiah reside in the Berkeley Square, sir?”
“I fancy not. Still—”
“I fancy not, too,” rejoined Malkiel. “Nor Bernard Wilkins either, or any prophet that ever I heard of. Why, even Jesse Jones lives off Perkin’s Road, Wandsworth Common, though he does keep a sitting-room in Berners Street just to see his clients in, and he is a very low-class person, even for a prophet. No, no, sir, Madame is quite right. She married me despite the damning—yes, I say, sir, the damning fact that I was a prophet—” here Malkiel the Second brought down one of the dogskin gloves with violence upon the rickety parlour table—“but before ever we went to the Registrar’s she made me take a solemn oath. What was it, do you say?”
“Yes, I do,” said Hennessey, leaning forward and gazing into Malkiel’s long and excited face round which the heavy mat of pomaded hair vibrated.
“It was this, sir—to mix with no prophets so long as we both should live. Prophets, she truly said, are low-class, even dirty, persons. Their parties, their ‘at homes’ are shoddy. They live in fourth-rate neighbourhoods. They burn gas and sit on horsehair. Only in rare cases do they have any bathroom in their houses. Their influence would be bad for the children when they begin to grow up. How could Corona make her debut”—Malkiel pronounced it debbew—“in prophetic circles? How could she come out in Drakeman’s Villas, Tooting, or dance with such young fellers as frequent Hagglin’s Buildings, Clapham Rise? How could she do it, sir?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure,” gasped the Prophet.
“Nor I, sir, nor I,” continued Malkiel, with unabated fervour. “And it’s the same with Capricornus. My boy shall not be thrown in with prophets. Did Malkiel the First start the Almanac for that? Did he foster it till it went from the poor servant girl’s attic into the gilded apartments of the aristocracy and lay even upon Royal tables for that? Did he, I say?”
“I haven’t an idea,” said the Prophet.
“He did not, sir. And I—I myself”—he arranged the diamond pin in his white satin tie with an almost imperial gesture—“have not followed upon the lines he laid down without imbibing, as I may truly say, the lofty spirit that guided him, the lofty social spirit, as Madame calls it. There have been other prophets, I know. There are other prophets. I do not attempt to deny it. But where else than here, sir”—the dogskin glove lay upon the breast of the chocolate brown frock coat—“where else than here will you find a prophet who hides his identity beneath an alias, who remains, as Madame always says, perdew, and who conducts his profession on honourable and business-like lines? Am I dressed like a prophet?” He suddenly brought his doubled fist down upon the Prophet’s knee.
“No,” cried Hennessey. “Certainly not!”
“Why, sir, how can I be when I tell you that Merriman & Saxster of Regent Street are my tailors, and have been since my first pair of trouserings? Do I bear myself prophetically? I think you will agree that I do not when you know that I am frequently mistaken for an outside broker—yes, sir, and that this has even happened upon the pier at Margate. You
