"
"I will not indeed. But let me explain. My beloved grandmother still
lives, although I cast her horoscope and--"
"Indeed! very remarkable!"
"I mean--not although--but I thought I would cast her horoscope. And I
did so."
"In the square?" asked Malkiel, with quiet, but piercing, irony.
"Yes," said the Prophet, with sudden heat. "Why not?"
Malkiel smiled with an almost paternal pity, as of a thoughtful father
gazing upon the quaint and inappropriate antics of his vacant child.
"Why not, sir--if you prefer it?" he rejoined. "Pray proceed."
The Prophet's face was flushed, either by the "creaming foam," or by
irritation, or by both.
"Surely," he began, in a choking voice, "surely the stars are the
same whether they are looked at from Berkeley Square or from--from--or
from"--he sought passionately for a violent contrast--"from Newington
Butts," he concluded triumphantly.
"I have not the pleasure to have ever observed my guides from the
neighbourhood of the Butts," said Malkiel, serenely. "But pray
proceed, sir. I am all attention. You cast your honoured grandmother's
horoscope--in the Berkeley Square."
The Prophet seized his glass, but some remnants of his tattered
self-control still clung to him, and he put it down without seeking
further madness from its contents.
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