“That was all.”
It was true, for Lady Enid had scarcely stayed to speak to the Prophet, having hurried out in the hope of discovering who were the “two parties” he had been entertaining on the ground floor.
Mrs. Merillia dropped the subject.
“Good-night, Hennessey,” she said. “Go to bed at once. You look quite tired. I am so thankful you have given up that horrible astronomy.”
The Prophet did not reply, but, as he went out of the room, he knew, for the first time, what criminals with consciences feel like when they are engaged in following their dread profession.
As he walked across the landing he heard a clock strike eleven. He started, hastened into his room, tore off his coat, replaced it with a quilted smoking-jacket, sprang lightly to his table, seized a planisphere, or star-map, which he had succeeded in obtaining that night from a small working astronomer’s shop in the Edgeware Road, and, mindful of the terms of his oath and the decided opinion of Robert Green, scurried hastily, but very gingerly, down the stairs. This time Mrs. Merillia did not hear him. She had indeed become absorbed in a new romance, written by a very rising young Montenegrin who was just then making some stir in the literary circles of the elect.
Very surreptitiously the Prophet tripped across the hall and reached the stout door which gave access to the servants’ quarters. But here he paused. Although he had lived in Mrs. Merillia’s most comfortable home for at least fifteen years, he had actually never once penetrated beyond this door. It had never occurred to him to do so. Often he had approached it. Quite recently, when Mrs. Fancy Quinglet had broken into tears on the refusal of Sir Tiglath Butt to burst according to her prediction, he had handed her to this very portal. But he had never passed through it, nor did he know what lay beyond. No doubt there was a kitchen, very probably the mysterious region of watery activities commonly known as a scullery, quite certainly a butler’s pantry. But where each separate sanctum lay, and what should be the physiognomy of each one the Prophet had not the vaguest idea. As he turned the handle of the door he felt like Sir Henry Stanley, when that intrepid explorer first set foot among the leafy habitations of the dwarfs.
As the door opened the Prophet found himself in a large apartment whose walls were decorated with the efforts of those great painters who feed the sentimental imaginations of the masses in the beautiful Christmas numbers of our artistic day. Enchanting little girls and exceedingly human dogs observed his entrance from every hand, while such penetrating and suggestive legends as “Don’t bite!” “Mustn’t!” “Naughty!” “Would ‘ums?” and the like, filled his mind with the lofty thoughts so suitable to the Christmas season. Over the mantelpiece was a Cook’s Almanac for the Home, decorated in bright colours, a Butler’s own book, bound in claret-coloured linen, and a large framed photograph of Francatelli, that immortal chef whose memory is kept green in so many kitchens, and whose recipes are still followed as are followed the footprints of the great ones in the Everlasting Sands of Time. One corner of the room Gustavus had made his own, and here might be seen his tasteful what-not and his little library—neatly arranged unabridged farthing editions of Drummond’s Ascent of Man, Mill’s Liberty, Crampton’s Origin of Self-Respect, Barlow’s A Philosophical Examination into the Art and Practice of Tipping and Receiving Tips, and other volumes suitable for an intellectual footman’s reading. An eight-day clock, which was carefully and lovingly wound up by the prudent Mrs. Fancy Quinglet every morning and evening, snored peacefully in a recess by the hearth, and, from a crevice near the window, the bright, intelligent eyes of a couple of well-developed black-beetles—mother and son—contentedly surveyed the cheerful scene.
The Prophet, after a moment’s pause of contemplation, passed on through a swing door, covered with green baize, and down some stairs to the inner courts of this interesting region. This time he came to anchor in a room which, he thought, might well have been a butler’s pantry had it contained a large-sized telescope. It was in fact the parlour set apart for the use of the kitchen and scullery maids, and was brightly fitted up with a dresser, a cupboard for skewers, a rolling-pin, a basting machine, and other similar adjuncts. It gave on to the kitchen, in which the cat of the house was enjoying well-earned slumber in the attitude of a black ball. So far his exploring tour had quite fulfilled the rather vague expectations of the Prophet, but he now began to feel anxious. Time was passing on and he had sworn to be at the telescope by eleven sharp. He had, therefore, already slightly fractured his oath, and he had no desire to earn the anathema of all such men as Robert Green by breaking it into small pieces. Where was the butler’s pantry? He glanced eagerly round the kitchen, perceived a door, passed through it, and found himself confronted by a sink. He had gained the scullery, but not his goal. To the right of the sink was yet another door through which the Prophet, who carried the planisphere in one hand, the George the Third candlestick in the other, rather excitedly debouched into a good-sized passage. As he did so he heard the muffled alto voice of the eight-day clock proclaim that it was a quarter-past eleven. Feeling that he was now upon the point of breaking both the promises of the damned fool, the Prophet hastened along the passage, darted through the first outlet, and found himself abruptly face to back with what appeared at first glance to be an enormously broad and bow-legged dwarf, with a bald head and a black tail coat, which, in an attitude of savage curiosity, was gazing through a gigantic instrument, whose muzzle projected from an open window into a spacious area. So great was the Prophet’s surprise, so supreme the shock to his whole nervous system occasioned by this unexpected encounter, that he did not utter a cry. His amazement carried him into that terrible region which lies beyond the realms of speech. He simply stood quite still and gazed at the bow-legged dwarf, which, in its turn, continued to gaze savagely through the gigantic instrument into the area. Not for perhaps three or four minutes did the Prophet realise that this dwarf was merely an ingeniously shortened form of Mr. Ferdinand, who, with his legs very wide apart, and making two accurate right angles at their respective knee-joints, his head thrown well back, and his arms arranged in two perfect capital V’s, with the elbows pointing directly at the walls on either side of him, had been busily engaged for the last hour and a quarter in trying to focus firstly the Lord Chancellor’s house on the opposite side of the square, and secondly the pleasant-looking second-cook in it. That his chivalrous efforts had not yet been crowned with complete success will be understood when we say that he had seen during his first half-hour of contemplation nothing at all, during his second half-hour the left-hand top star of the Great Bear, and finally the fourth spike from the end of the iron railing which enclosed the square garden, at which he had been gazing closely for precisely fifteen minutes and a half when the Prophet darted into the pantry.
Having at length recovered from his shock of surprise sufficiently to realise that the enormous and immobile dwarf was Mr. Ferdinand, and that Mr. Ferdinand was not yet aware of his presence, the Prophet resolved to beat a rapid and noiseless retreat. He carried this resolve into execution by turning sharply round, knocking his head against a plate chest, firing the George the Third candlestick into the passage, and letting the planisphere go into the china jar of “Butler’s own special pomade” which Mr. Ferdinand kept always open for use upon the pantry table.