go in the brougham. Zoological House, Regent's
Park, is the direction. Let me help you in, Madame."

As the Prophet got in to sit bodkin between his old and valued friends,
he whispered to the footman,--

"Tell Simkins to drive as fast as possible. We are very late."

The footman touched his hat. Just as the carriage moved off, the Prophet
protruded his head from the window, and saw the astronomer rolling into
the four-wheeler, the horse of which immediately fell down in a most
satisfactory manner.

There was no general conversation in the brougham, but the Prophet, who
was obliged to sit partly on Madame, and partly on Mr. Sagittarius and
partly on air, occasionally heard in the darkness at his back terrible
matrimonial whisperings, whose exact tenor he was unable to catch. Once
only he heard Madame say sibilantly and with a vicious click,--

"I might have known what to expect when I married a Prophet--when
I passed over the _pons asinoribus_ to give myself to a _monstram
horrendo_."

To this pathetic heart-cry Mr. Sagittarius made a very prolonged
answer. The Prophet knew it was prolonged because Mr. Sagittarius always
whispered in such a manner as to tickle the nape of his neck. But he
could not hear anything except a sound like steam escaping from a small
pipe. The steam went on escaping until the brougham passed through a
gate, rolled down a declivity, and drew up before an enormous mansion
whose windows blazed with light.

"Is this the Zoological Gardens?" inquired Madame in a stern voice. "Is
this the habitation of the woman Bridgeman?"

"I suppose this is Zoological House," replied the Prophet, sliding
decorously off Madame's left knee in preparation for descent.

"My darling! my love!" said Mr. Sagittarius. "I swear upon the infant
head of our Capricornus that Mrs. Bridgeman and I are--"

"Enough!" cried Madame. "_Jam satus_! Be sure that I will inquire into
this matter."

The carriage door was opened and, with some struggling, the Prophet and
his two valued friends emerged and speedily found themselves in a very
large hall, which was nearly full of very large powdered footmen. In
the distance there was the sound of united frivolities, a band of twenty
guitars thrumming a wilful _seguidilla_. Roses bloomed on every side,
and beyond the hall they beheld a vision of illuminated vistas, down
which vague figures came and went.

Evidently when Mrs. Bridgeman let herself go she let herself go
thoroughl