B.F.R.S. and popular member of the
Colley Cibber Club in Long Acre.
The Prophet was introduced to Sir Tiglath at the Colley Cibber Club, and
though Sir Tiglath, who was of a freakish disposition and much addicted
to his joke declined to speak to him, on the ground that he (Sir
Tiglath) had lost his voice and was unlikely to find it in conversation,
the Prophet was greatly impressed by the astronomer's enormous brick-red
face, round body, turned legs, eyes like marbles, and capacity for
drinking port-wine--so much so, in fact that, on leaving the club, he
hastened to buy a science primer on astronomy, and devoted himself for
several days to a minute investigation of the Milky Way.
As there is a fascination of the earth, so is there a fascination of the
heavens. Along the dim, empurpled highways that lead from star to star,
from meteorite to comet, the imagination travels wakefully by night, and
the heart leaps as it draws near to the silver bosses of the moon.
Mrs. Merillia was soon obliged to permit the intrusion of a gigantic
telescope into her pretty drawing-room, and found herself expected to
converse at the dinner-table on the eight moons of Saturn, the belts of
Jupiter, the asteroids of Mars and the phases of Venus.
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