THE PROPHET IS INTERVIEWED BY TWO KIDS
Mr.Ferdinand met the Prophet in the hall.
"I have done as you directed, sir," he said respectfully.
"As I directed, Mr.Ferdinand? I was not aware that I ever directed anybody," replied the Prophet, suspecting irony.
"I understood you to say, sir, that if any more telegrams was to arrive, I was to burn them, sir.""Telegrams! Good Heavens! You don't mean to say that--""There has been some seventeen or eighteen, sir.I have burnt them, sir, to ashes, according to your orders.""Quite right, Mr.Ferdinand," said the Prophet, putting his hand up to his hair, to feel if it were turning grey."Quite right.How is--how, Isay, is Mrs.Merillia?"
"Well, Master Hennessey, she's not dead yet."And Mr.Ferdinand, with a contorted countenance moved towards the servants' hall.
The Prophet stood quite still with his hat and coat on for several minutes.An amazing self-possession had come to him, the unnatural self-possession of despair.He felt quite calm, as the statue of a dead alderman feels on the embankment of its native city.Nothing seemed to matter at all.He might have been Marcus Aurelius--till a loud double knock came to the front door.Then he might have been any dangerous lunatic, ripe for a strait waistcoat.Mr.Ferdinand approached.The Prophet faced him.
"Kindly retire, Mr.Ferdinand," he said in a very quiet voice."I will answer that knock."Mr.Ferdinand retired rather rapidly.The knock was repeated.The Prophet opened the door.A telegraph boy, about two and a half feet high, stood outside upon the step.
"Telegram, sir," he said in a thin voice.
"Give it to me, my lad," replied the Prophet.
The small boy handed the telegram and turned to depart.
"Wait a moment, my lad," said the Prophet, very gently.
The small boy waited.
"Do you wish to be strangled, my lad?" asked the Prophet.
The small boy tried to recoil, but his terror rooted him firmly to the spot.
"Do all the other boys at the office wish to be strangled?" continued the Prophet."Come, my lad, why don't you answer me?""No, sir," whispered the small boy, passing his little tongue over his pale lips.
"Very well, my lad, the next boy who brings a telegram to this house will be strangled, do you understand that?""Yes, sir," sighed the small boy, like a terror-stricken Zephyr.
"That's right.Good-night, my lad."
The Prophet closed the street door very softly, and the small boy dropped fainting on the pavement and was carried to the nearest hospital on a stretcher by two dutiful policemen.
Meanwhile the Prophet opened the telegram and read as follows:--"Insufferable insolence.How dare you; shall pay dearly; with you to-morrow first 'bus.
"JUPITER AND MADAME SAGITTARIUS."
"Mr.Ferdinand!" called the Prophet.
"Yes, sir."
"I am about to write a telegram.Gustavus will take it to the office.""Yes, sir."
The Prophet went into the library and wrote these words on a telegraph form:--"Jupiter Sagittarius, Sagittarius Lodge, Crampton St.Peter, N.
Your life is in danger; keep where you are; another telegram may destroy you.Grave news.
"VIVIAN."
The Prophet gave this telegram to Gustavus and then prepared to go upstairs to his grandmother.As he mounted towards the drawing-room he murmured to himself over and over again,--"Sir Tiglath--Malkiel! Malkiel--Sir Tiglath!"He found Mrs.Merillia very prostrate.It seemed that the telegraph boys had very soon worn through the cotton-wool with which the knocker had been shrouded, and that the incessant noise of their efforts to attract attention at the door had quite unnerved the gallant old lady.
Nevertheless, her own condition was the last thing she thought of.
"I don't mind for myself, Hennessey," she said."But it is very sad after all these years of respect and even, I think, a certain popularity, to be considered a nuisance by one's square.We are hopelessly embroiled with the Duchess of Camberwell, and the Lord Chancellor has sent over five times to explain the different laws and regulations that we are breaking.I don't see how you can go to his Reception to-night, really.""I am not going, grannie," said the Prophet, overwhelmed with contrition."I cannot go in any case.""Why not?"
"I--I have some work to do at home."
He avoided the glance of her bright eyes, and continued.
"Grannie, I am deeply grieved at all you have gone through to-day.
Believe me it has not been my fault--at least not entirely.I may have been injudicious, but I never--never--"He paused, quite overcome with emotion.
"I don't know what will happen if the telegrams go on till midnight,"said Mrs.Merillia."The Duke of Camberwell is a very violent man, since he had that sunstroke at the last Jubilee, and I shouldn't wonder if he--""Grannie, there will not be any more telegrams.""But you said that before, Hennessey."
"And I say it again.There will not be any more.I have just informed the messenger that the next boy who knocks will certainly be--well, destroyed."Mrs.Merillia breathed a sigh of relief.
