You understand?"
The young librarian looked out of the window.
"Oh, I'll manage that, sir. It ain't raining," he replied carelessly.
The Prophet stifled a cry of horror as he pressed the sovereign into the
young librarian's hand.
"You can keep the change," he whispered, adding in a tremulous voice,
"Tell me--tell me frankly--do you think in your own mind that there will
be any?"
"I don't know about in my own mind," rejoined the young librarian,
drawing a tweed cap from some hidden recess beneath the counter. "But if
you only want two bottles I expect there'll be ten bob over."
The Prophet turned as pale as ashes and had some difficulty in
sustaining himself to the parlour, where he and Malkiel the Second sat
down in silence to await the young librarian's return. Frederick Smith
came back in about five minutes, with an ostentatious-looking bottle
smothered in gold leaf under each arm.
"There was four shillings apiece to pay, sir," he remarked to the
Prophet as he placed them upon the table. "I got the 'our own make'
brand with the 'creaming foam' upon the corks."
The Prophet bent his head. He was quite unable to speak, but he signed
to the young librarian to open one of the bottles and pour its contents
into the two tumblers of thick and rather dusty glass that Jellybrand's
kept for its moments of conviviality.
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