f voices.

"Come on!" cried the policeman.

"Why?" asked the Prophet.

"Why! you're a nice un, you are! Why! And nab 'em, of course!"

"You think it would be wise to--what was the word--nab them?" inquired
the Prophet. "You really think so?"

"Well, what am I here for then?" said the policeman, with angry irony.

"Oh, if you prefer," rejoined the Prophet, civilly. "Nab them by all
means. I shall not prevent you."

The policeman, who was an active and industrious fellow deserving of
praise, waited for no further permission, but immediately darted up the
stairs, and in less than a minute returned with Mrs. Merillia--attired
in a black silk gown, a bonnet, and an Indian shawl presented to her on
her marriage by a very great personage--in close custody.

"Here's one of 'em!" he shouted. "Here, you lay hold of her while I
fetch the rest!"

And with these words he thrust the Prophet's grandmother into one of his
hands, the broken truncheon into the other, and turning smartly round,
again bounded up the stairs.

In a famous poem of the late Lord Tennyson there is related a dramatic
incident of a lady whose disinclination to cry, when such emotion would
have been only natural, was overcome by the presentation to her of her
child. A somewhat similar effect was produced upon our Prophet by the
constable's presentation to him of his honoured grandmother. The sight
of her reverent head, surmounted by the bonnet which she had assumed in
readiness to flee from the house which she could no longer regard as
a home--the touch of her delicate hand--the flutter of her so hallowed
Indian shawl--these things broke down the strange calm of her devoted
grandson. Like summer tempest came his emotion, and, when the policeman
presently returned with Malkiel the Second and Madame nabbed by his
right and left hands, and followed by Lady Enid and the weeping Mrs.
Fancy, he was confronted by a most pathetic tableau. The Prophet and
Mrs. Merillia were weeping in each other's arm's while Sir Tiglath and
Gustavus--just returned to consciousness--were engaged in examining the
proceeding with puppy dog's eyes.

Over the explanations that ensued a veil may be partially drawn. One
lifted corner, however, allows us to note that Sir Tiglath Butt, having
come upon Madame hidden behind a bin of old port in the Prophet's
cellar, had been seized by a desire not to alarm a lady so profound that
it prompted him to hurry to the butler's pantry, and to