"
"Oh, really!"
"You know it, sir?"
"Not personally."
"But by repute, of course?"
"No doubt, no doubt," stammered the Prophet, who had in fact never
before heard of this celebrated flood.
"That poor governess, sir, last August--you recollect?"
"Ah, indeed!" murmured the Prophet, a trifle incoherently.
"And then the mad undertaker in the autumn," continued Malkiel, with
conscious pride; "he floated past our very door."
"Did he really?"
"Singing his swan song, no doubt, poor feller, as Madame said after she
read about it in the paper. There were the grocer's twins as well, just
lately. But they will be fresh in your memory."
Before the Prophet had time to state whether this was so or not Malkiel
proceeded,--
"Well, sir, as soon as Madame and I had come to the Mouse we resolved
that we could do no better than that. It was salubrious, it was retired,
and it was N."
"You said--?"
"N., sir."
"But what is en?"
"Sir?"
The Prophet had grown very red, but he was seized by the desperation
that occasionally attacks ignorance, and renders it, for a moment,
determinedly explicit.
"I ask you what does en mean? I am, I fear, a very ill-informed person,
and I really don't know.
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