“Perhaps you’re right.”
“Perhaps so,” rejoined Malkiel, indulgently. “Well, sir, what was your next attempt—in the Berkeley Square?”
The Prophet’s sensitive nature winced under the obvious irony of the interrogation, but either the “creaming foam” had rendered him desperate, or he was to some extent steeled against the satire by the awful self-respect which had invaded him since Mrs. Merillia’s accident. In any case he answered firmly,—
“Malkiel the Second, in Berkeley Square I had a relation—an honoured grandmother.”
“You’ve the better of me there, sir. My parents and Madame’s are all in Brompton Cemetery. Well, sir, you’d got an honoured grandmother in the Berkeley Square. What of it?”
“She was naturally elderly.”
“And you predicted her death and she passed over. Very natural too, sir. The number two beginner’s prophecy. Why, Corona—”
But at this point the Prophet broke in.
“Excuse me,” he said in a scandalised voice, “excuse me, Malkiel the Second, she did nothing of the kind. Whatever my faults may be—and they are many, I am aware—I—I—”
He was greatly moved.