THE PROPHET CREATES A DIVERSION AT HIS OWN EXPENSEOn stepping into a small vestibule, paved with black and white lozenges, and fitted up with an iron umbrella stand, a Moorish lamp and a large yellow china pug dog, the Prophet found himself at once faced by Mr.Sagittarius, whose pallid countenance, nervous eye and suspicious demeanour plainly proclaimed him to be, as he had stated, very rightly and properly going about in fear of his life.
"Go to the schoolroom, my darlings," he whispered to his children.
"Why, what have you there?"
"Choclets," said Capricornus.
"From the pretty lady, mulius pulchrum," added the little Corona.
"Who is a mulibus pulchrum, my love?" asked Mr.Sagittarius, before Capricornus had time to correct his sister's Latin.
"It was Miss Minerva," said the Prophet."We happened to meet her.""Indeed, sir.Run away, my pretties, and don't eat more than one each, or mater familias will not approve.
Then, as the little ones disappeared into the shadows of the region above, he added to the Prophet,--"You've nearly been the death of Madame, sir.""I'm sure I'm very sorry," said the Prophet.
"Sorrow is no salve, sir, no salve at all.Were it not for her books Ifear we might have lost her."
"Good gracious!"
"Mercifully her books have comforted her.She is resting among them now.Madame is possessed of a magnificent library, sir, encyclopaedic in its scope and cosmopolitan in its point of view.In it are represented every age and every race since the dawn of letters;thousands upon thousands of authors, sir, Rabelais and Dean Farrar, Lamb and the Hindoos, Mettlelink and the pith of the great philosophers such as John Oliver Hobbes, Locke, Hume and Earl Spencer; the biting sarcasm of Hiny, the pathos of Peps, the oratorical master-strokes of such men as Gladstone, Demosthenes and Keir Hardie; the romance of Kipling, sir, of Bret Harte and Danty Rossini; the poetry of Kempis a Browning and of Elizabeth Thomas Barrett--all, all are there bound in Persian calf.Among these she seeks for solace.To these she flies in hours of anguish.""Does she indeed?" said the Prophet, feeling thoroughly overwhelmed.
"She desires me to take you to her at once, sir, there to confer and"--he lowered his voice and trembled visibly--"to arrange measures for the protection of my life."The Prophet found himself wishing that he had been less precipitate in covertly alluding to Sir Tiglath's long desire of assault and battery, but before he had time to wish anything for more than half a minute, Mr.Sagittarius had guided him ceremoniously across the hall and was turning the handle of a door that was decorated with black and scarlet paint.
"Here, sir," he whispered, "you will find Madame surrounded by the authors whom she loves, by their portraits, their biographies and their writings.Here she communes with the great philosophers, sir, the poets, the historians and the humourists of the entire world, from the earliest days down to this very moment--in Persian calf, sir."He gazed awfully at the Prophet, and gently opened the door of this temple of the intellect.
The Prophet expected to find himself ushered into a gigantic chamber, lined from floor to ceiling with shelves that groaned beneath their burden of the literature of genius.Indeed he had, in fancy, beheld even the chairs and couches covered with stacks of volumes, the very floor littered with the choicest productions of the brains of the dead and living.His surprise was, therefore, very great when, on passing through the door, he beheld Madame Sagittarius reposing at full length upon a maroon sofa in a small apartment, whose bare walls, were entirely innocent of book-shelves.Indeed the only thing of the sort which was visible was a dwarf revolving bookcase which stood beside the sofa, and contained some twenty volumes bound, as Mr.Sagittarius had stated, in Persian calf, each of these volumes being numbered and adorned with a label on which was printed in letters of gold, "The Library of Famous Literature: Edited by Dr.Carter.Tasty Tit-bits from all Times.""Madame, sir, in her library," whispered Mr.Sagittarius by the door.
"She is absorbed, sir, and does not notice us."In truth Madame Sagittarius did appear to be absorbed in thought, or something else, for her eyes were closed, her mouth was open, and a sound of regular breathing filled the little room.
"She is thinking out some problem, sir," continued Mr.Sagittarius.
"She is communing with the mighty dead.Sophronia, my love, Sophronia, Capricornus has brought the gentleman according to your orders.Sophy!
Sophy!"
His final utterances, which were somewhat strident caused Madame Sagittarius to come away from her communion with the mighty dead with a loud ejaculation of the nature of a snort combined with a hissing whistle, to kick up her indoor kid boots into the air, turn upon her right elbow, and present a countenance marked with patches of red and white, and a pair of goggling, and yet hazy, eyes to the intruders upon her intellectual exertions.
"Mr.Vivian has come, Sophronia, according to your directions."Madame uttered a second snort, brought her feet to the floor, arranged her face in a dignified expression with one fair hand, breathed heavily, and finally bowed to the Prophet with majestic reserve and remarked, with the professional click,--"I was immersed in thought and did not perceive your entrance./Mens invictus manetur/.Be seated, I beg."Here certain very elaborate contortions and swellings of her interesting countenance suggested that she was repressing a good-sized yawn, and she was obliged to rearrange her features with both hands before she could continue.
"Thought conquers matter, as Plauto--I should say as Platus very rightly obesrved.""Quite so," assented the Prophet, trying to live up to the library, but scarcely succeeding.