All this business with colored lights and chords on
that old organ is only tomfoolery. Wait til you see the pythoness.

_The Envoy's wife falls on her knees, and takes refuge in prayer._

THE DAUGHTER [_trembling_] Are we really going to see a woman who has
lived three hundred years?

ZOO. Stuff! Youd drop dead if a tertiary as much as looked at you. The
oracle is only a hundred and seventy; and you'll find it hard enough to
stand her.

THE DAUGHTER [_piteously_] Oh! [_she falls on her knees_].

THE ENVOY. Whew! Stand by me, Poppa. This is a little more than I
bargained for. Are you going to kneel; or how?

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Perhaps it would be in better taste.

_The two men kneel._

_The vapor of the abyss thickens; and a distant roll of thunder seems to
come from its depths. The pythoness, seated on her tripod, rises slowly
from it. She has discarded the insulating robe and veil in which she
conversed with Napoleon, and is now draped and hooded in voluminous
folds of a single piece of grey-white stuff. Something supernatural
about her terrifies the beholders, who throw themselves on their faces.
Her outline flows and waves: she is almost distinct at moments, and
again vague and shadowy: above all, she is larger than life-size, not
enough to be measured by the flustered congregation, but enough to
affect them with a dreadful sense of her supernaturalness._

ZOO. Get up, get up. Do pull yourselves together, you people.

_The Envoy and his family, by shuddering negatively, intimate that it
is impossible. The Elderly Gentleman manages to get on his hands and
knees._

ZOO. Come on, Daddy: you are not afraid. Speak to her. She wont wait
here all day for you, you know.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_rising very deferentially to his feet_] Madam:
you will excuse my very natural nervousness in addressing, for the first
time in my life, a--a--a--a goddess. My friend and relative the Envoy is
unhinged. I throw myself upon your indulgence--

ZOO [_interrupting him intolerantly_] Dont throw yourself on anything
belonging to her or you will go right through her and break your neck.
She isnt solid, like you.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I was speaking figuratively--

ZOO. You have been told not to do it. Ask her what you want to know; and
be quick about it.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_stooping and taking the prostrate Envoy by the
shoulders_] Ambrose: you must make an effort. You cannot go back to
Baghdad without the answ