r, the
tumblers and bottles on the table, the sharp features and strained,
farcical eyes of Malkiel framed in the matted, curling hair. Then all
was not over yet. There was something still in store for him. He sat up,
pushed the creaming four-shilling foam out of his sight, turned to his
interlocutor, and with a great effort collected himself.

"I want to consult you," he began, "about my strange powers."

Malkiel smiled with easy irony.

"Strange powers in Berkeley Square!" he ejaculated. "The Berkeley
Square! But go on, sir. What are they?"

"Having been led to study the stars," continued the Prophet with more
composure and growing earnestness, "I felt myself moved to make a
prophecy."

"Weather forecast, I suppose," remarked Malkiel, laconically.

"How did you know that?"

"The easiest kind, sir, the number one beginner's prophecy. Capricornus
used to tell Madame what the weather'd be as soon as he could talk. But
go on, sir, go on, I beg."

The Prophet began to feel rather less like Isaiah, but he continued,
with some determination,--

"If that had been all, I daresay I should have thought very little of
the matter."

"No, you wouldn't sir. Who thinks their first baby a little one? Can you
tell me that?"

The Prophet considered the question for a moment. Then he answered,--

"Perhaps you're right."

"Perhaps so," rejoined Malkiel, indulgently. "Well, sir, what was your
next attempt--in the Berkeley Square?"

The Prophet's sensitive nature winced under the obvious irony of
the interrogation, but either the "creaming foam" had rendered him
desperate, or he was to some extent steeled against the satire by the
awful self-respect which had invaded him since Mrs. Merillia's accident.
In any case he answered firmly,--

"Malkiel the Second, in Berkeley Square I had a relation--an honoured
grandmother."

"You've the better of me there, sir. My parents and Madame's are all in
Brompton Cemetery. Well, sir, you'd got an honoured grandmother in the
Berkeley Square. What of it?"

"She was naturally elderly."

"And you predicted her death and she passed over. Very natural too, sir.
The number two beginner's prophecy. Why, Corona--"

But at this point the Prophet broke in.

"Excuse me," he said in a scandalised voice, "excuse me, Malkiel the
Second, she did nothing of the kind. Whatever my faults may be--and they
are many, I am aware--I--I--"

He was greatly moved.

"Take another sup of wine, sir. You