第39章

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.

To say that Mr.Ferdinand ceased from looking through the telescope for the Lord Chancellor's second-cook at this juncture would, perhaps, not convey quite a fair idea of the activity which he could on occasion display even at his somewhat advanced age.It might be more just to state that, without wasting any precious time in useless elongation, he described an exceedingly rapid circular movement, still preserving the shortened form of himself which had so deceived and startled his master, and brought his eye from the orifice of the telescope to a level with the Prophet's knees exactly at the moment when the Prophet rebounded from the plate chest into the centre of the apartment.

"Oh, is it you, Mr.Ferdinand?" said the Prophet, controlling every symptom of anguish, with the exception of a rapid flutter of the eyelids."I was looking for--for a bradawl."The Prophet's choice of this useful little implement as the reason for his presence in Mr.Ferdinand's special sanctum was prompted by the fact that, just as he was speaking, he happened to see a bradawl lying upon a neighbouring knife cupboard in the company of a corkscrew.

"And here, I see, is just what I want," he added calmly.

So far he had displayed extraordinary composure, but at this point he made a slight mistake, for he picked up the corkscrew and sauntered quietly away with it into the darkness, leaving Mr.Ferdinand still in the attitude of a Toby jug, the planisphere still head downwards in the butler's own special pomade, and the George the Third candlestick stretched at full length upon the passage floor.