“But I have had the telesc—”
“Kindly dot it down.”
The Prophet dotted it down with the wrong end of the pencil on the wrong side of the account-book.
“And what are his hours to be exactly, Jupiter?” continued Madame. “From eleven till dawn, I suppose?”
The Prophet shuddered.
“Eleven till three will be sufficient, my love. The crab, you know, has pretty well done his London work by that time. And the old lady will have to depend very much on the crab for these few nights.”
At this point the Prophet’s brain began to swim. Sparks seemed to float before his eyes, and amid these sparks, nebulous and fragmentary visions appeared, visions of his beloved grandmother companioned by scorpions and serpents, in close touch with camelopards and bovine monsters, and, in the last stress of terror and dismay, left entirely dependent upon crustaceans for that help and comfort which hitherto her devoted grandson had ever been thankful to afford.
“Oh, very well,” replied Madame. “You will be able to get to bed at three, Mr. Vivian. Dot that down.”
“Thank you,” murmured the Prophet, making a minute pencil scratch in the midst of a bill for butcher’s meat.
“During these hours—but you can tell him the rest, Jupiter.”