“Quite right, Mr. Ferdinand. By the way, here is the bradawl. Leave it out again to-night in case I have need of it.”
So saying, the Prophet handed the bradawl, which he had craftily conveyed from the pantry on the previous night, to the astonished butler and walked swiftly into the breakfast-room. The basket of telegrams was set outside beside a fried sole and the “equipage” which Madame had so much admired, and, while he sipped his tea, the Prophet opened the wires one by one. They were fraught with terror and dismay. Evidently his mysterious warning had thrown the worthies who dwelt beside the Mouse into a condition of the very gravest amazement and alarm, and they had, despite the Prophet’s final injunction, spent the remaining telegraphic hours of the day in despatching wires of frantic inquiry to the square. Madame, in particular, was evidently much upset, and expressed her angry agitation in a dead language that seemed positively to live again in fear and novelty of grammatical construction. Sir Tiglath had been a brilliant card to play in the prophetic game, although he had not achieved the Prophet’s purpose of stopping the telegraphic flood.
While the Prophet was simultaneously finishing the fried sole and the perusal of the final wire Mr. Ferdinand entered, in a condition of obvious astonishment that might well have cost him his place.
“If you please, sir,” he said, in an up-and-down voice, “if you please there are two—two—two—”
“Two what? Be more explicit, Mr. Ferdinand.”
“Two—well, sir, kids at the door waiting for you to see them, sir.”
“Two kids! What—from the goat show that’s going on at the Westminster Aquarium!” cried the Prophet in great surprise.
“Maybe, sir. I can’t say, indeed, sir. Am I to show them in, sir?”
“Show them in! Are you gone mad, Mr. Ferdinand? They must be driven out at once. If Mrs. Merillia were to see them, she might be greatly alarmed. I’ll—I’ll—follow me, Mr. Ferdinand, closely.”
So saying the Prophet stepped valiantly into the hall. There, by the umbrella stand, stood two small children, boy and girl, very neatly dressed in a sailor suit and a grey merino. The little boy held in his hand a large round straw hat, on the blue riband of which was inscribed in letters of gold, “H.M.S. Hercules.” The little girl wore a pleasant pigtail tied with a riband of the same hue.