had the Prophet felt so alive with curiosity as he did when
he followed Lady Enid into Mrs. Merillia's presence, for he knew that he
was about to see the venerable victim of the young librarian's
indignant chivalry, the "old gent" who had come to intimate terms with
Jellybrand's bookcase, and who had kicked and knocked at least a pint
of paint off Jellybrand's door. His eyes were large and staring as he
glanced swiftly from his grandmother's sofa to the huge telescope, under
whose very shadow was seated no less a personage than Sir Tiglath Butt,
holding a cup of tea on one hand and a large-sized muffin in the other.

No wonder the Prophet jumped. No wonder Mrs. Merillia cried out, in her
pretty, clear voice,--

"Take care of Beau, Hennessey! You're treading on him."

The dachshund's pathetic shriek of outrage made the rafters ring. Mrs.
Merillia put her mittens to her ears, and Sir Tiglath dropped his muffin
into a jar of pot-pourri.

"I beg your pardon," said the Prophet, earnestly. "Sir Tiglath--this is
indeed a sur--a pleasure."

Lady Enid was being embraced by Mrs. Merillia. The Prophet extended his
hand to the astronomer, who, however, turned his back to the company
and, diving one of his enormous hands into the pot-pourri jar, began to
rummage violently for his vanished meal.

"What is it?" said the Prophet, who had not seen the muffin go. "Can I
help you?"

Still presenting his huge back and the purple nape of his fat neck to
the assemblage, the astronomer, after trying in vain to extract the lost
dainty in a legitimate manner, turned the jar upside down, and poured
the rose-leaves and the muffin in a heterogeneous libation upon the
Chippendale table. After a close examination of it he turned around,
holding up the food to whose buttered surface several leaves adhered in
a disordered, but determined, manner.

"Only a Persian could devour this muffin now," he said, in his rumbling,
sing-song and strangely theatrical voice, which always suggested that he
was about to deliver a couple of hundred or so lengths of blank verse.
"Omar beneath his tree perchance, or Gurustu who to Baghdad came with
steed a-foam and eyes a-flame. Wherefore do you trample upon hapless
animals that are not dumb, young man, and cause the poor astronomer to
cast his muffin upon the roses, where, mayhap, the housemaid might find
it after many days? Oh-h-h-h!"

He uttered a tremulous bass cry of mingled reproach and despair, that
sou