ct for
the poet Gray and a love of Slough peppermint that could only cease
with life. Here too he made friends with Robert Green, son of Lord
Churchmore, who was afterwards to be a certain influence in his life.
His existence at Slough was happy. Indeed, so great was his affection
for the place that his removal to Eton cost him suffering scarcely less
acute than that which presently attended his departure from Eton to
Christchurch. Over his sensations on leaving Oxford we prefer to draw a
veil, only saying that his last outlook--as an undergraduate--over her
immemorial towers was as hazy as the average Cabinet Minister's outlook
over the events of the day and the desires of the community.

But if the moisture of the Prophet did him credit at that painful period
of his life, it must be allowed that his behaviour on being formally
introduced into London Society showed no puling regret, no backward
longings after echoing colleges, lost dons and the scouts that are no
more. He was quite at his ease, and displayed none of the high-pitched
contempt of Piccadilly that is often so amusingly characteristic of the
young gentlemen accustomed to "the High."

Mrs. Merillia, who had been a widow ever since she could remember,
possessed the lease of the house in Berkeley Square in which the
Prophet was now sitting. It was an excellent mansion, with everything
comfortable about it, a duke on one side, a Chancellor of the Exchequer
on the other, electric light, several bathrooms and the gramophone.
There was never any question of the Prophet setting up house by himself.
On leaving Oxford he joined his ample fortune to Mrs. Merillia's as
a matter of course, and they settled down together with the greatest
alacrity and hopefulness. Nor were their pleasant relations once
disturbed during the fifteen years that elapsed before the Prophet
applied his eye to the telescope in the bow window and gave Mr.
Ferdinand the instructions which have just been recorded.

These fifteen years had not gone by without leaving their mark upon our
hero. He had done several things during their passage. For instance,
he had written a play, very nearly proposed to the third daughter of
a London clergyman and twice been to the Derby. Such events had, not
unnaturally, had their effect upon the formation of his character and
even upon the expression of his intelligent face. The writing of
the play--and, perhaps, its refusal by all the actor-managers of the
town-