These fifteen years had not gone by without leaving their mark upon our
hero. He had done several things during their passage. For instance,
he had written a play, very nearly proposed to the third daughter of
a London clergyman and twice been to the Derby. Such events had, not
unnaturally, had their effect upon the formation of his character and
even upon the expression of his intelligent face. The writing of
the play--and, perhaps, its refusal by all the actor-managers of the
town--had traced a tiny line at each corner of his mobile mouth. The
third daughter of the London clergyman--his sentiment for her--had
taught his hand the slightly episcopal gesture which was so admired at
the Lambeth Palace Garden Party in the summer of 1892. And the great
race meeting was responsible for the rather tight trousers and the
gentleman-jockey smile which he was wont to assume when he set out for a
canter in the Row. From all this it will be guessed that our Prophet was
exceedingly amenable to the influences that throng at the heels of the
human destiny. Indeed, he was. And some few months before this story
opens it came about that he encountered a gentleman who was, in fact,
the primary cause 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,