"You are over fifty years of age," it said with devastating compassion,
"and you can still trust a gentleman who opens doors! _O sanctum
simplicitatus!_"
On hearing this sudden gush of classical erudition the Prophet must have
been seized by a paralysing awe, for he remained as if glued to the mat,
and made no effort to open the door and step into the room.
"If I am sanctified, Sophronia," said the voice of Malkiel, "I cannot
help it, indeed I can't. We are as we are."
"Did Bottom say so in his epics?" cried the contralto, contemptuously.
"Did Shakespeare imply that when he invented his immortal Bacon, or
Carlyle, the great Cumberland sage, when he penned his world-famed
'Sartus'?"
"P'r'aps not, my dear. You know best. Still, ordinary men--not that I,
of course, can claim to be one--must remain, to a certain extent, what
they are."
"Then why was Samuel Smiles born?"
"What, my love?"
"Why, I say? Where is the use of effort? Of what benefit was Plato's
existence to the republic? Of what assistance has the great Tracy Tupper
been if men must still, despite all his proverbs, remain what they are?
_O curum hominibus! O imitatori! Servus pecum!_"
At this point the voice of Mr.
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