The Prophet of Berkeley Square eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 313 pages of information about The Prophet of Berkeley Square.

The Prophet of Berkeley Square eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 313 pages of information about The Prophet of Berkeley Square.
had set forth, with tears, in his new Eton jacket and broad white collar, to go to Mr. Chapman’s preparatory school for little boys at Slough.  Here he remained for several years, acquiring a respect for the poet Gray and a love of Slough peppermint that could only cease with life.  Here too he made friends with Robert Green, son of Lord Churchmore, who was afterwards to be a certain influence in his life.  His existence at Slough was happy.  Indeed, so great was his affection for the place that his removal to Eton cost him suffering scarcely less acute than that which presently attended his departure from Eton to Christchurch.  Over his sensations on leaving Oxford we prefer to draw a veil, only saying that his last outlook—­as an undergraduate—­over her immemorial towers was as hazy as the average Cabinet Minister’s outlook over the events of the day and the desires of the community.

But if the moisture of the Prophet did him credit at that painful period of his life, it must be allowed that his behaviour on being formally introduced into London Society showed no puling regret, no backward longings after echoing colleges, lost dons and the scouts that are no more.  He was quite at his ease, and displayed none of the high-pitched contempt of Piccadilly that is often so amusingly characteristic of the young gentlemen accustomed to “the High.”

Mrs. Merillia, who had been a widow ever since she could remember, possessed the lease of the house in Berkeley Square in which the Prophet was now sitting.  It was an excellent mansion, with everything comfortable about it, a duke on one side, a Chancellor of the Exchequer on the other, electric light, several bathrooms and the gramophone.  There was never any question of the Prophet setting up house by himself.  On leaving Oxford he joined his ample fortune to Mrs. Merillia’s as a matter of course, and they settled down together with the greatest alacrity and hopefulness.  Nor were their pleasant relations once disturbed during the fifteen years that elapsed before the Prophet applied his eye to the telescope in the bow window and gave Mr. Ferdinand the instructions which have just been recorded.

These fifteen years had not gone by without leaving their mark upon our hero.  He had done several things during their passage.  For instance, he had written a play, very nearly proposed to the third daughter of a London clergyman and twice been to the Derby.  Such events had, not unnaturally, had their effect upon the formation of his character and even upon the expression of his intelligent face.  The writing of the play—­and, perhaps, its refusal by all the actor-managers of the town—­had traced a tiny line at each corner of his mobile mouth.  The third daughter of the London clergyman—­his sentiment for her—­had taught his hand the slightly episcopal gesture which was so admired at the Lambeth Palace Garden Party in the summer of 1892.  And the great race meeting was responsible for the

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Prophet of Berkeley Square from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.