Until he encountered Sir Tiglath Butt in the dining-room of the Colley Cibber Club Hennessey had been but a dilettante fellow.He had written a play, but airily, and without the twenty years of arduous and persistent study declared by the dramatic critics to be absolutely necessary before any intelligent man can learn how to get a bishop on, or a chambermaid off, the stage.He had nearly proposed to a clergyman's daughter, but thoughtlessly, and without any previous examination into the clericalism of rectory females, any first-hand knowledge of mothers' meetings, devoid of which he must be a stout-hearted gentleman who would rush in where even curates often fear to tread.He had been to the Derby, but without wearing a bottle-green veil or carrying a betting-book.In fact, he had not taken life very seriously, or fully appreciated the solemn duties it brings to all who bear its yoke.Only when the plump red hand of Sir Tiglath--holding a bumper of thirty-four port--pointed the way to the heavens, did Hennessey begin--through his telescope--to see the great possibilities that foot it about the existence of even the meanest man who eats, drinks and suffers.For through his telescope he saw that he might be a prophet.Malkiel read the future in the stars.Why not he?
He endeavoured to do so.He sought an intimacy with the benefic /Jupiter/, and found it--perhaps by a secret kow-towing to /Sagittarius/.He made up openly to /Canis Major/ and was shortly on what might almost be considered terms of affection with /Venus/.And he was, moreover, presently quite fearless in the presence of /Saturn/, quite unabashed beneath the glittering eye of /Mercury/.Then, as the neophyte growing bold by familiarity with the circle of the great ones, he ventured on his first prophecy, a discreet and even humble forecast of the weather.He predicted a heavy fall of snow for a certain evening, and so distrusted his own prediction that when the evening came, mild and benign, he sallied forth to the Empire Palace of Varieties, and stayed till near midnight, laughing at the sallies of French clowns, and applauding the frail antics of cockatoos on motor bicycles.When, on the stroke of twelve, he came airily forth wrapped in the lightest of dust coats, he was obliged to endure the greatest of man's amazements--the knowledge that there was a well of truth within him.Leicester Square was swathed in an ivory fleece, and he was obliged to gain Berkeley Square on foot, treading gingerly in pumps, escorted by linkmen with flaring golden torches, and preceded by tipsy but assiduous ruffians armed with shovels, who, with many a lusty oath and horrid imprecation, cleared a thin thread of path between the towering walls of snow that sparkled faintly in the gaslight.
This experience fired him.He rose up early, lay down late, and, quite with her assent, cast the horoscope of Mrs.Merillia in the sweat of his brow.He cast, we say, her horoscope and, from a certain conjunction of the planets, he gathered, to his horror, that upon the fifteenth day of the month of January she would suffer an accident while on an evening jaunt.We find him now, on this fifteenth day of the first month, aware of his revered grandmother's intrepid expedition to the Gaiety Theatre, waiting her return to Berkeley Square with mingled feelings which we might analyse for pages, but which we prefer baldly to state.
He longed to be proved indeed a prophet, and he longed also to see his beloved relative return from her sheaf of pleasures in the free and unconstrained use of all her graceful limbs.He was, therefore, torn by foes in a mental conflict, and was in no case to sip the philosophic honey of Marcus Aurelius as he sat between the telescope and the fire in the comfortable drawing-room awaiting his grandmother's return.
"Gustavus," said Mr.Ferdinand in the servants' hall to the flushed footman who lay upon a what-not, sipping a glass of ale and reading a new and unabridged farthing edition of Carlyle's /French Revolution/, "Gustavus, Mrs.Merillia has been and gone to the Gaiety Theatre to-night.We expect her back at eleven-thirty sharp.She may need assistance on her return, Gustavus."The footman put down the tumbler which he was in the act of raising to his pouted lips.
"Assistance, Mr.Ferdinand!" he ejaculated."Mrs.Merillia, Mr.
Ferdinand!"
"She may--we say she /may/--have to be carried to bed, Gustavus."Gustavus's jaw dropped, and the /French Revolution/ fluttered in his startled hands.
"Good lawks, Mr.Ferdinand!" he exclaimed (not quoting from Carlyle).
"Have an armchair ready in the hall, Gustavus.Mrs.Merillia must not be dropped.You understand? That will do, Gustavus."And Mr.Ferdinand passed to the adjacent supper-table, to join the upper housemaid in a discussion of two subjects that were very near to their hearts, a round of beef and a tureen of pickled cabbage, while Gustavus got up from the what-not in a bemused manner, and proceeded to search dreamily for an armchair.He came upon one by chance in the dining-room, and wheeled it out into the hall just as the clocks in the house rang out the half-hour after eleven.
The Prophet above sprang up from the couch by the fire, Mr.Ferdinand below closed his discussion with the upper housemaid, and the former rapidly came down, the latter up, stairs as the roll of wheels broke through the silence of the square.
Gustavus, in an attitude of bridled curiosity, was posed beneath a polar bear that held an electric lamp.His hand was laid upon the back of the armchair, and his round hazel eyes were turned expectantly towards the hall as his two masters joined him.
"Is all ready, Mr.Ferdinand?" said the Prophet, anxiously.
"All is ready, sir," replied the butler.
"Wheel the chair forward, Gustavus, if you please," said the Prophet.
"Mrs.Merillia must not be dropped.Remember that.""Not be dropped, sir--no."
