"The Palace! Do you mean the Crystal Palace?"
"Of Buckingham? You are not an _amicas curiae_?"
"I fear I don"t catch your meaning."
"Does not your ladyship comprehend the Latin tongue?"
"Certainly not," said Lady Julia, who was born in an age when it was considered highly improper for a young female to have any dealings with the ancients. "Certainly not."
"Dear me!" said Madame, with pitying amazement. "You hear her ladyship, Jupiter?"
"I do, my angel. Madame is a lady of deep education, ma"am," said Mr.
Sagittarius, turning to Mrs. Merillia, who had been listening to the foregoing cross-examination with perpetually-increasing horror.
"No decent female should understand Greek or Latin," roared Sir Tiglath at this point. "If she does she"s sure to read a great deal that she"s no business to know anything about."
At this challenge Madame"s bulging brow was overcast with a red cloud.
"I beg to disagree, sir," she exclaimed. "In my opinion the Georgics of Horatius, Homer"s Idyls and the satires of the great Juvenile--"
"The great what?" bellowed Sir Tiglath.
"The great Juvenile, sir."
"There never was a great juvenile, ma"am. Talent must be mellow before it is worth tasting, whatever the modern whipper-snapper may say. There never was, and there never will be, a great juvenile--there can only be a juvenile preparing to be great."
"Really, sir."
"I affirm it, madam. And as you seem so mighty fond of Latin, remember what Horace says--_Qui cupit opatam cursu contingere metam, Multa tulit fecitque puer, sudavit et alsit_. Oh-h-h-h!"
And Sir Tiglath flung himself back in his chair, puffing out his enormous cheeks and wagging his gigantic head at Madame who, for once in her life, seemed entirely at a loss, and unable to call to her a.s.sistance a single shred of learning from the library of Dr. Carter.
Having at last emerged from his Epicurean silence, the astronomer now proceeded to take the floor. Satisfied that he had laid a presuming female low, he swung round, as if on a pivot, to where Mr. Sagittarius was sitting in the greatest agitation, and roared,--
"And now, sir what is all this about your being an outside broker? I was distinctly informed by this gentleman only a night or two ago that you were a distinguished astronomer."
"I am betrayed!" cried Mr. Sagittarius, dropping the knife and fork which he had just picked up for the dissection of a lobster croquette.
"I said this was a trap. I said it was a rat-trap from the first."
"I knew he must be a ratcatcher," whispered Lady Julia to the Prophet, who was about to rise from his seat and endeavour to calm his guest. "I was certain no one but a ratcatcher could talk in such a manner."
"He is not indeed! Mr. Sagittarius, pray sit down! You are alarming my grandmother."
"I can"t help that, sir. I am not going to sit here, sir, and be slain."
"Tsh! Tsh! I merely informed Sir Tiglath the other evening that what Miss Minerva had told him about you was true."
"Miss Minerva!" cried Madame, glancing at her husband in a most terrible manner. "Miss Minerva!"
"Lady Enid Thistle, I mean," cried the Prophet, mentally cursing the day when he was born.
"Who"s that?" exclaimed Madame, beginning to look almost exactly like Medusa.
"A young female who informed the old astronomer that your husband and an elderly female named Mrs. Bridgeman had for a long while been carrying on astronomical investigations together--"
"Carrying on together!" vociferated Madame. "Jupiter!"
"And that they had come to the conclusion that there was probably oxygen in certain of the holy fixed stars. Oxygen, so the elderly female--"
"Oxygen in an elderly female!" cried Madame, in the greatest excitement.
"Jupiter, is this true?"
Mr. Sagittarius was about to bring forward a flat denial when the Prophet, leaning behind the terrified back of Lady Julia, hissed in his ear,--
"Say yes, or he"ll find out who you really are!"
"Yes," cried Mr. Sagittarius, in a catapultic manner.
Madame began to show elaborate symptoms of preparation for a large-sized fit of hysterics. She caught her breath five or six times running in a resounding manner, heaved her bosom beneath the green chiffon and coffee-coloured lace, and tore feebly with both hands at a large medallion brooch that was doing sentry duty near her throat.
"Pray, pray, Madame," exclaimed the Prophet, who was now near his wits"
end. "Pray--"
"How can I pray at table, sir?" she retorted, suddenly showing fight.
"You forget yourself."
"Oh, Hennessey," said poor Mrs. Merillia, "what does all this mean?"
"Nothing, grannie, nothing except that Mr. Sagittarius is a very modest man and does not care to acknowledge the greatness of his talents. Pray sit down, Mr. Sagittarius. Here is the ice pudding. Madame, I am sure you will take some ice. Mr. Ferdinand!"
"Sir?"
"The ice to Madame Sagittarius instantly!"
Mr. Ferdinand, who was trembling in every limb at having to a.s.sist at such a scene in his dining-room, which had hitherto been the very temple of soft conversation and the most exquisite decorum, advanced towards Madame, clattering the flat silver dish, and causing the frozen delicacy that the cook had elegantly posed upon it to run first this way and then that as if in imitative agitation.
"I cannot," sobbed Madame, beginning once more to catch her breath. "At such a moment food becomes repulsive!"
"I a.s.sure you our cook"s ice puddings are quite delicious; aren"t they, grannie?"
"I have no idea, Hennessey," said Mrs. Merillia, who was so upset by the extraordinary scene at which she was presiding in the character of hostess, that she mechanically clutched the left bandeau of her delightful wig, and set it quite a quarter of an inch awry.
"Try it, Madame," cried the Prophet. "I implore you to try it."
Thus adjured Madame detached a large piece of the agile pudding with some difficulty, and subsided into a morose silence, while her husband sat with his eyes fixed imploringly upon her, totally regardless of his social duties. As both Mrs. Merillia and Lady Julia were by this time thoroughly unnerved, and Sir Tiglath was once more immersed in his food, the whole burden of conversation fell upon the Prophet, who indulged in a feverish monologue that lasted until the end of dinner. What he talked about he could never afterwards certainly remember, but he had a vague idea that he discussed the foreign relations of England with Madagascar, the probable future of Poland, the social habits of the women of Alaska, the prospects of tobacco culture in West Meath, and the effect that imported Mexicans would be likely to produce upon the natural simplicity of such unsophisticated persons as inhabit Lundy Island or the more remote districts of the Shetlands. When the ladies at length rose to leave the dining-room his brain was in a whirl and he had little doubt that his temperature was up to 104. Nevertheless his mind was still active, was indeed preternaturally acute for the moment, and he saw in a flash the impossibility of leaving Madame Sagittarius alone with his grandmother and Lady Julia. As they got up from their seats he therefore took out his watch and said,--
"Dear me! It is later than I had supposed. I am afraid we ought to be starting for Zoological House. Mrs. Bridgeman will be expecting us."