The Prophet of Berkeley Square | Page 6

of this story being true. Who was this gentleman?
you will say. Sir Tiglath Butt, the great astronomer, Correspondent of
the Institute of France, Member of the Royal College of Science,
Demonstrator of Astronomical Physics, author of the pamphlet, "Star-
Gazers," and the brochure, "An investigation into the psychical
condition of those who see stars," C.B.F.R.S. and popular member of
the Colley Cibber Club in Long Acre.
The Prophet was introduced to Sir Tiglath at the Colley Cibber Club,
and though Sir Tiglath, who was of a freakish disposition and much
addicted to his joke declined to speak to him, on the ground that he (Sir
Tiglath) had lost his voice and was unlikely to find it in conversation,
the Prophet was greatly impressed by the astronomer's enormous
brick-red face, round body, turned legs, eyes like marbles, and capacity
for drinking port-wine--so much so, in fact that, on leaving the club, he
hastened to buy a science primer on astronomy, and devoted himself
for several days to a minute investigation of the Milky Way.
As there is a fascination of the earth, so is there a fascination of the
heavens. Along the dim, empurpled highways that lead from star to star,
from meteorite to comet, the imagination travels wakefully by night,
and the heart leaps as it draws near to the silver bosses of the moon.

Mrs. Merillia was soon obliged to permit the intrusion of a gigantic
telescope into her pretty drawing-room, and found herself expected to
converse at the dinner-table on the eight moons of Saturn, the belts of
Jupiter, the asteroids of Mars and the phases of Venus. These last she at
first declined to discuss with a man, even though he were her grandson.
But she was won over by the Prophet's innocent persuasiveness, and
drawn on until she spoke almost as readily of the movements of the
stars as formerly she had spoken of the movements of the Court from
Windsor to London, and from London to Balmoral. In truth, she
expected that Hennessey's passion for the comets would cease as had
ceased his passion for the clergyman's daughter; that his ardour for
astronomy would die as had died his ardour for play-writing; that he
would give up going to /Corona Borealis/ and to the Southern Fish as
he had given up going to the Derby. Time proved her wrong. As the
days flew Hennessey became increasingly impassioned. He was more
often at the telescope than at the Bachelors', and seemed on the way to
become almost as gibbous as the planet Mars. Even he slightly
neglected his social duties; and on one terrible occasion forgot that he
was engaged to dine at Cambridge House because he was assisting at a
transit of Mercury.
Now all this began to weigh upon the mind of Mrs. Merillia, despite the
amazing cheerfulness of disposition which she had inherited from two
long lines of confirmed optimists--her ancestors on the paternal and
maternal sides. She did not know how to brood, but, if she had, she
might well have been led to do so. And even as it was she had been
reduced to so unusual a condition of dejection that, a week before the
evening we are describing, she had been obliged to order a box at the
Gaiety Theatre, she, who, like all optimists, habitually frequented those
playhouses where she could behold gloomy tragedies, awful
melodramas, or those ironic pieces called farces, in which the ultimate
misery of which human nature is capable is drawn to its farthest point.
In the beginning of this new dejection of hers, Mrs. Merillia was now
seated in a stage box at the "Gaiety," with an elderly General of Life
Guards, a Mistress of the Robes, and the grandfather of the Central
American Ambassador at the Court of St. James, and all four of them

were smiling at a neat little low comedian, who was singing, without
any voice and with the utmost precision, a pathetic romance entitled,
"De Coon Wot Got de Chuck."
Meanwhile the Prophet was engaged for the twentieth time in
considering whether Mrs. Merillia, on her return from this festival,
would have to be carried to bed by hired menials.
Why?
This brings us to the great turning point in our hero's life, to the point
when first he began to respect the strange powers stirring within him.
Until he encountered Sir Tiglath Butt in the dining-room of the Colley
Cibber Club Hennessey had been but a dilettante fellow. He had written
a play, but airily, and without the twenty years of arduous and
persistent study declared by the dramatic critics to be absolutely
necessary before any intelligent man can learn how to get a bishop on,
or a chambermaid off, the stage. He had nearly proposed to a