Of Mrs. Merillia, the live grandmother with whom he had the great felicity to dwell in Berkeley Square, he seldom said anything in public praise.  The incense he offered at her shrine rose, most sweetly perfumed, from his daily life.  The hearth of this agreeable and grandmotherly chamber was attractive with dogs, the silver cage beside it with green love-birds.  Upon the floor was a heavy, dull-blue carpet over which—­as has been intimated—­even a butler so heavy as Mr. Ferdinand could go softly.  The walls were dressed with a dull blue paper that looked like velvet.

Here and there upon them hung a picture:  a landscape of George Morland, lustily English, a Cotman, a Cuyp—­cows in twilight—­a Reynolds, faded but exquisitely genteel.  A lovely little harpsichord—­meditating on Scarlatti—­stood in one angle, a harp, tied with most delicate ribands of ivory satin powdered with pimpernels, in another.  Many waxen candles shed a tender and unostentatious radiance above their careful grease-catchers.  Upon pretty tables lay neat books by Fanny Burney, Beatrice Harraden, Mary Wilkins, and Max Beerbohm, also the poems of Lord Byron and of Lord de Tabley.  Near the hearth was a sofa on which an emperor might have laid an easy head that wore a crown, and before every low and seductive chair was set a low and seductive footstool.

A grandmother’s clock pronounced the hour of ten in a frail and elegant voice as the finely-carved oak door was opened, and the Prophet seriously entered this peaceful room, carrying a copy of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius in his hand.

He was a neatly-made little man of fashionable, even of modish, cut, spare, smart and whimsical, with a clean-shaved, small-featured face, large, shining brown eyes, abundant and slightly-waving brown hair, that could only be parted, with the sweetest sorrow, in the centre of his well-shaped, almost philosophical head, and movements light and temperate as those of a meditative squirrel.  Having just dined he was naturally in evening dress, with a butterfly tie, gleaming pumps, and a buttonhole of violets.  He shut the door gently, glanced at his nice-looking grandmothers, and, walking forward very quietly and demurely, applied his eye to the telescope, lowering himself slightly by a Sandow exercise, which he had practised before he became a prophet.  Having remained in this position of astronomical observation for some minutes, he deviated into the upright, closed the window, and tinkled a small silver bell that stood on the tulip-wood table beside Malkiel’s Almanac.

Mr. Ferdinand appeared, looking respectfully buoyant.

“Has Mr. Malkiel sent any reply to my inquiry, Mr. Ferdinand?” asked the Prophet.

“He has not, sir,” replied Mr. Ferdinand, sympathetically.

“Did the boy messenger say he delivered my note?”

“He said so, sir, on his Bible oath, sir.”

“And do you believe him?”