seek concealment
in the very cupboard which already contained Malkiel the Second. On
perceiving that gentleman perched upon the loving-cup, and protected by
candlesticks, sugar basins, teapots and other weapons, the astronomer's
anxiety to become a murderer apparently forsook him. At any rate, he
passed through the plate-glass of the window rather hastily into the
area, where, as we know, he received the solicitous attentions of
the policeman who had served as an intermediary between the Lord
Chancellor's second cook--whose supper of dressed crab had caused so
much confusion--and the supposed Mr. Ferdinand. Malkiel the Second,
finding himself discovered, took to the open just as Madame fled forth
from the cellar, to be overtaken by the very natural misconception that
she was about to become the victim of a husband whose jealousy had at
length caused him to assume his _toga virilibus_.

Perhaps it was Sir Tiglath's throwing off of the said garment which
caused Lady Enid to throw him over. At any rate, she eventually married
Mr. Robert Green and made him a very sensible wife.

The Malkiels returned to the Mouse, where they still live, and still
carry on a certain amount of intercourse with architects and their
wives. From time to time, however, they attend the receptions at
Zoological House, and a rumour recently ran through the circles of the
silly to the effect that they had been looking at a house not far from
the Earls Court Station, with a view--it is surmised--of removing to
more central districts.

They are no longer on terms with the Prophet.

He has retired from business and put down his telescope once and for
all, recognising that prophecy is a dangerous employment, and one likely
to bring about the very evils it foreshadows. Calmly he dwells with his
beloved grandmother in the Berkeley Square, which has received them once
more into its former favour. Sometimes, at night, when the sky is
clear, and the bright stars, the guardian stars, keep watch over
his aristocratic neighbourhood, he draws aside the curtain from the
drawing-room window and glances forth at Mercury and Uranus, Jupiter,
Saturn and Venus. And when his eyes meet their twinkling eyes, he
exchanges with them--not a question and answer, not a demand for
unholy information and a reluctant reply, but a serene, gentlemanly and
perfectly decorous good-night.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Prophet of Berkeley Square, by Robert Hichens

***