For through his telescope he saw that
he might be a prophet. Malkiel read the future in the stars. Why not he?
He endeavoured to do so. He sought an intimacy with the benefic
_Jupiter_, and found it--perhaps by a secret kowtowing to
_Sagittarius_. He made up openly to _Canis Major_ and was shortly on
what might almost be considered terms of affection with _Venus_. And
he was, moreover, presently quite fearless in the presence of _Saturn_,
quite unabashed beneath the glittering eye of _Mercury_. Then, as the
neophyte growing bold by familiarity with the circle of the great ones,
he ventured on his first prophecy, a discreet and even humble forecast
of the weather. He predicted a heavy fall of snow for a certain evening,
and so distrusted his own prediction that when the evening came, mild
and benign, he sallied forth to the Empire Palace of Varieties, and
stayed till near midnight, laughing at the sallies of French clowns, and
applauding the frail antics of cockatoos on motor bicycles. When, on the
stroke of twelve, he came airily forth wrapped in the lightest of dust
coats, he was obliged to endure the greatest of man's amazements--the
knowledge that there was a well of truth within him.
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