hering them
to turn informers and 'give away' the knowledge which is deliberately
hidden from us. Show me a man that can understand the present and you'll
have shown me a god. And yet you knock at the gates of the heavens
through that telescope and clamour to be told the future! Fie upon you,
young man, fie! Oh-h-h-h!"

Now the Prophet, as has been before observed, possessed a very sensitive
nature. He was also very devoted to his grandmother, and had an
extraordinary reverence for the world-famed attainments of Sir Tiglath
Butt. Therefore, when he heard Mrs. Merillia's pleading, and the
astronomer's weighty denunciation, he was deeply moved. Nevertheless, so
strongly had recent events appealed to his curiosity, so ardently did he
desire to search into the reality of his own peculiar powers, that it
is very doubtful whether he might not have withstood both the behests of
affection and of admiration had it not been that they took to themselves
an ally, whose force is one of the moving spirits of the world. This
ally was fear. Just as the Prophet was beginning to feel obstinate and
to steel himself to resistance, he remembered the fierce and horrible
threats of Malkiel the Second. If he should cease to concern himself
with the stars, if he should cease to prophesy, not alone should he
restore peace to his beloved grandmother, and pay the tribute of respect
to Sir Tiglath, but he should do more. He should preserve his quick from
being searched and his core from being probed. His marrow, too, would be
rescued from the piercing it had been so devoutly promised. The dread,
by which he was now companioned--of Malkiel, of that portentous and
unseen lady who dwelt beside the secret waters of the Mouse, of those
imagined offshoots of the prophetic tree, Corona and Capricornus--this
would drop away. He would be free once more, light-hearted, a happy and
mildly intellectual man of the town, emerged from the thrall of bogies,
and from beneath the yoke which he already felt laid upon his shoulders
by those august creatures who were the centre of the architectural
circle.

All these things suddenly presented themselves to the Prophet's mind
with extraordinary vividness and force. His resolve was taken in a
moment, and, turning to his eager grandmother and to the still slightly
inflated astronomer, he exclaimed without further hesitation,--

"Very well. I'll give it up. I promise you."

Mrs. Merillia clapped her mittens together al