pades came up three times in conjugation with the Knave of
'earts!"

"Terrific! Very great!" buzzed Verano, with a strong South American
Irish brogue--a real broth of a brogue.

"Wonderful!" said Lady Enid, hastily, endeavouring to pass on.

"Wait a minute, darling. Well, I says to Jane--I was laying the cards
for her 'usband, dear--I says to Jane, I says, without doubt Hisaac is
about to pass over, I says, seeing the red boy's come up in conjugation
with the hace. 'Lord! Mrs. Eliza! Lay them out again,' she says, 'for,'
she says, 'if Hike is going to pass over,' she says--"

"Extraordinary, dear Mrs. Eliza! You're a genius!" cried Lady Enid in
despair.

"Tremendous! Very big!" buzzed Verano, staring at Sir Tiglath. "You got
a very spatulate hand there, sir! Allow me!"

And to Lady Enid's horror he seized the astronomer's hand with both his
own.

"How dare you tamper with the old astronomer, sir?" roared Sir Tiglath.
"Am I in a madhouse? Who are all these crazy Janes! Drop my hand, sir!"

Verano obeyed rather hastily, and Lady Enid convoyed the spluttering
astronomer towards the corner which contained Mr. and Madame
Sagittarius.

Now these worthies were in a mental condition of a most complicated
kind. The reception at Zoological House had upset in an hour the
theories and beliefs of a lifetime. Hitherto Madame had always been
filled with shame at the thought that she was not the wife of an
architect but of a prophet, and Mr. Sagittarius had endeavoured to
assume the mein and costume of an outside broker, and had dreamed dreams
of retiring eventually from a hated and despised profession. But now
they found themselves in a magnificent mansion in which the second-rate
members of their own tribe were worshipped and adored, smothered with
attentions, plied with Pommery and looked upon as gods, while they, in
their incognito, were neglected, and paid no more heed to than if they
had been, in reality, mere architects and outside brokers, totally
unconnected with that mysterious occult world which is the fashion of
the moment.

This position of affairs had, not unnaturally, thrown then into a
condition of the gravest excitement. Madame, more especially, had
reached boiling point. Feeling herself, for the first time, an Imperial
creature in exile, who had only to declare herself to receive instant
homage and to be overwhelmed with the most flattering attentions,
her lust of glory developed with alarming rapidity, a