"Take the five shillings," said Horace, "and if it's too little I'll come round and settle with your master later."
"I thought you said you wasn't likely to be porsin' again? No, mister, you don't kid me that way!"
Horace had a mad impulse to snatch up the precious bottle then and there and make off with it, and might have yielded to the temptation, with disastrous consequences, had not an elderly man entered the shop at that moment. He was bent, and wore rather more fluff and flue upon his person than most well-dressed people would consider necessary, but he came in with a certain air of authority, nevertheless.
"Mr. Dilger, sir," piped the youth, "'ere's a gent took a fancy to this 'ere brass pot o' yours. Says hemust'ave it. Five shillings he'd got to, but I told him he'd 'ave to wait till you come in."
"Quite right, my lad!" said Mr. Dilger, cocking a watery but sharp old eye at Horace. "Five shillings! Ah, sir, you can't know much about these hold brass antiquities to make an orfer like that."
"I know as much as most people," said Horace. "But let us say six shillings."
"Couldn't be done, sir; couldn't indeed. Why, I give a pound for it myself at Christie's, as sure as I'm standin' 'ere in the presence o' my Maker, and you a sinner!" he declared impressively, if rather ambiguously.
"Your memory is not quite accurate," said Horace. "You bought it last night from a man of the name of Rapkin, who lets lodgings in Vincent Square, and you paid exactly half a crown for it."
"If you say so I dare say it's correct, sir," said Mr. Dilger, without exhibiting the least confusion. "And if I did buy it off Mr. Rapkin, he's a respectable party, and ain't likely to have come by it dishonest."
"I never said he did. What will you take for the thing?"
"Well, just look at the work in it. They don't turn out the like o' that nowadays. Dutch, that is; what they used for to put their milk and such-like in."
"Damn it!" said Horace, completely losing his temper. "Iknow what it was used for.Willyou tell me what you want for it?"
"I couldn't let a curiosity like that go a penny under thirty shillings," said Mr. Dilger, affectionately. "It would be robbin' myself."
"I'll give you a sovereign for it—there," said Horace. "You know best what profit that represents. That's my last word."
"Mylast word to that, sir, is good hevenin'," said the worthy man.
"Good evening, then," said Horace, and walked out of the shop; rather to bring Mr. Dilger to terms than because he really meant to abandon the bottle, for hedared not go back without it, and he had nothing about him just then on which he could raise the extra ten shillings, supposing the dealer refused to trust him for the balance—and the time was growing dangerously short.
Fortunately the well-worn ruse succeeded, for Mr. Dilger ran out after him and laid an unwashed claw upon his coat-sleeve. "Don't go, mister," he said; "I like to do business if I can; though, 'pon my word and honour, a sovereign for a work o' art like that! Well, just for luck and bein' my birthday, we'll call it a deal."
Horace handed over the coin, which left him with a few pence. "There ought to be a lid or stopper of some sort," he said suddenly. "What have you done with that?"
"No, sir, there you're mistook, you are, indeed. I do assure you you never see a pot of this partickler pattern with a lid to it. Never!"
"Oh, don't you, though?" said Horace. "I know better. Never mind," he said, as he recollected that the seal was in Fakrash's possession. "I'll take it as it is. Don't trouble to wrap it up. I'm in rather a hurry."
It was almost dark when he got back to his rooms, where he found the Jinnee shaking with mingled rage and apprehension.
"No welcome to thee!" he cried. "Dilatory dog that thou art! Hadst thou delayed another minute, I would have called down some calamity upon thee."
"Well, you need not trouble yourself to do that now," returned Ventimore. "Here's your bottle, and you can creep into it as soon as you please."
"But the seal!" shrieked the Jinnee. "What hast thou done with the seal which was upon the bottle?"
"Why, you've got it yourself, of course," said Horace, "in one of your pockets."
"O thou of base antecedents!" howled Fakrash, shaking out his flowing draperies. "How shouldIhavethe seal? This is but a fresh device of thine to undo me!"
"Don't talk rubbish!" retorted Horace. "You made the Professor give it up to you yesterday. You must have lost it somewhere or other. Never mind! I'll get a large cork or bung, which will do just as well. And I've lots of sealing-wax."
"I will have no seal but the seal of Suleyman!" declared the Jinnee. "For with no other will there be security. Verily I believe that that accursed sage, thy friend, hath contrived by some cunning to get the seal once more into his hands. I will go at once to his abode and compel him to restore it."
"I wouldn't," said Horace, feeling extremely uneasy, for it was evidently a much simpler thing to let a Jinnee out of a bottle than to get him in again. "He's quite incapable of taking it. And if you go out now you'll only make a fuss and attract the attention of the Press, which I thought you rather wanted to avoid."
"I shall attire myself in the garments of a mortal—even those I assumed on a former occasion," said Fakrash, and as he spoke his outer robes modernised into a frock-coat. "Thus shall I escape attention."
"Wait one moment," said Horace. "What is that bulge in your breast-pocket?"
"Of a truth," said the Jinnee, looking relieved but not a little foolish as he extracted the object, "it is indeed the seal."
"You're in such a hurry to think the worst of everybody, you see!" said Horace. "Now,dotry to carry away with you into your seclusion a better opinion of human nature."
"Perdition to all the people of this age!" cried Fakrash, re-assuming his green robe and turban, "for I now put no faith in human beings and would afflict them all, were not the Lord Mayor (on whom be peace!) mightier than I. Therefore, while it is yet time, take thou the stopper, and swear that, after I am in thisbottle, thou wilt seal it as before and cast it into deep waters, where no eye will look upon it more!"
"With all the pleasure in the world!" said Horace; "only you must keepyourpart of the bargain first. You will kindly obliterate all recollection of yourself and the brass bottle from the minds of every human being who has had anything to do with you or it."
"Not so," objected the Jinnee, "for thus wouldst thou forget thy compact."
"Oh, very well, leavemeout, then," said Horace. "Not that anything could make me forgetyou!"
Fakrash swept his right hand round in a half circle. "It is accomplished," he said. "All recollection of myself and yonder bottle is now erased from the memories of every one but thyself."
"But how about my client?" said Horace. "I can't afford to losehim, you know."
"He shall return unto thee," said the Jinnee, trembling with impatience. "Now perform thy share."
Horace had triumphed. It had been a long and desperate duel with this singular being, who was at once so crafty and so childlike, so credulous and so suspicious, so benevolent and so malign. Again and again he had despaired of victory, but he had won at last. In another minute or so this formidable Jinnee would be safely bottled once more, and powerless to intermeddle and plague him for the future.
And yet, in the very moment of triumph, quixotic as such scruples may seem to some, Ventimore's conscience smote him. He could not help a certain pity for the old creature, who was shaking there convulsively prepared to re-enter his bottle-prison rather than incur a wholly imaginary doom. Fakrash had aged visibly within the last hour; now he looked even older than his three thousand and odd years. True, he had led Horace a fearful life of late, but at first, at least, his intentions had been good. His gratitude, if mistaken in its form, was the sign of a generous disposition. Not every Jinnee,surely, would have endeavoured to press untold millions and honours and dignities of all kinds upon him, in return for a service which most mortals would have considered amply repaid by a brace of birds and an invitation to an evening party.
And how was Horace treatinghim? He was taking what, in his heart, he felt to be a rather mean advantage of the Jinnee's ignorance of modern life to cajole him into returning to his captivity. Why not suffer him to live out the brief remainder of his years (for he could hardly last more than another century or two at most) in freedom? Fakrash had learnt his lesson: he was not likely to interfere again in human affairs; he might find his way back to the Palace of the Mountain of the Clouds and end his days there, in peaceful enjoyment of the society of such of the Jinn as might still survive unbottled.
So, obeying—against his own interests—some kindlier impulse, Horace made an effort to deter the Jinnee, who was already hovering in air above the neck of the bottle in a swirl of revolving draperies, like some blundering old bee vainly endeavouring to hit the opening into his hive.
"Mr. Fakrash," he cried, "before you go any farther, listen to me. There's no real necessity, after all, for you to go back to your bottle. If you'll only wait a little——"
But the Jinnee, who had now swelled to gigantic proportions, and whose form and features were only dimly recognisable through the wreaths of black vapour in which he was involved, answered him from his pillar of smoke in a terrible voice. "Wouldst thou still persuade me to linger?" he cried. "Hold thy peace and be ready to fulfil thine undertaking."
"But, look here," persisted Horace. "I should feel such a brute if I sealed you up without telling you——" The whirling and roaring column, in shape like an inverted cone, was being fast sucked down into thevessel, till only a semi-materialised but highly infuriated head was left above the neck of the bottle.
"Must I tarry," it cried, "till the Lord Mayor arrive with his Memlooks, and the hour of safety is expired? By my head, if thou delayest another instant, I will put no more faith in thee! And I will come forth once more, and afflict thee and thy friends—ay, and all the dwellers in this accursed city—with the most painful and unheard-of calamities."
And, with these words, the head sank into the bottle with a loud clap resembling thunder.
Horace hesitated no longer. The Jinnee himself had absolved him from all further scruples; to imperil Sylvia and her parents—not to mention all London—out of consideration for one obstinate and obnoxious old demon, would clearly be carrying sentiment much too far.
Accordingly, he made a rush for the jar and slipped the metal cover over the mouth of the neck, which was so hot that it blistered his fingers, and, seizing the poker, he hammered down the secret catch until the lid fitted as closely as Suleyman himself could have required.
Then he stuffed the bottle into a kit-bag, adding a few coals to give it extra weight, and toiled off with it to the nearest steamboat pier, where he spent his remaining pence in purchasing a ticket to the Temple.
* * * * *
Next day the following paragraph appeared in one of the evening papers, which probably had more space than usual at its disposal:
"SINGULAR OCCURRENCE ON A PENNYSTEAMER
"A gentleman on board one of the Thames steamboats (so we are informed by an eye-witness) met with a somewhat ludicrous mishap yesterday evening. Itappears that he had with him a small portmanteau, or large hand-bag, which he was supporting on the rail of the stern bulwark. Just as the vessel was opposite the Savoy Hotel he incautiously raised his hand to the brim of his hat, thereby releasing hold of the bag, which overbalanced itself and fell into the deepest part of the river, where it instantly sank. The owner (whose carelessness occasioned considerable amusement to passengers in his immediate vicinity) appeared no little disconcerted by the oversight, and was not unnaturally reticent as to the amount of his loss, though he was understood to state that the bag contained nothing of any great value. However this may be, he has probably learnt a lesson which will render him more careful in future."
On a certain evening in May Horace Ventimore dined in a private room at the Savoy, as one of the guests of Mr. Samuel Wackerbath. In fact, he might almost be said to be the guest of the evening, as the dinner was given by way of celebrating the completion of the host's new country house at Lipsfield, of which Horace was the architect, and also to congratulate him on his approaching marriage (which was fixed to take place early in the following month) with Miss Sylvia Futvoye.
"Quite a small and friendly party!" said Mr. Wackerbath, looking round on his numerous sons and daughters, as he greeted Horace in the reception-room. "Only ourselves, you see, Miss Futvoye, a young lady with whom you are fairly well acquainted, and her people, and an old schoolfellow of mine and his wife, who are not yet arrived. He's a man of considerable eminence," he added, with a roll of reflected importance in his voice; "quite worth your cultivating. Sir Lawrence Pountney, his name is. I don't know if you remember him, but he discharged the onerous duties of Lord Mayor of London the year before last, and acquitted himself very creditably—in fact, he got a baronetcy for it."
As the year before last was the year in which Horace had paid his involuntary visit to the Guildhall, he was able to reply with truth that hedidremember Sir Lawrence.
He was not altogether comfortable when the ex-Lord-Mayor was announced, for it would have been more than awkward if Sir Lawrence had chanced to rememberhim. Fortunately, he gave no sign that he did so, though his manner was graciousness itself. "Delighted, my dear Mr. Ventimore," he said pressing Horace's hand almost as warmly as he had done that October day of the dais, "most delighted to make your acquaintance! I am always glad to meet a rising young man, and I hear that the house you have designed for my old friend here is a perfect palace—a marvel, sir!"
"I knew he was my man," declared Mr. Wackerbath, as Horace modestly disclaimed Sir Lawrence's compliment. "You remember, Pountney, my dear fellow, that day when we were crossing Westminster Bridge together, and I was telling you I thought of building? 'Go to one of the leading men—an R.A. and all that sort of thing,' you said, 'then you'll be sure of getting your money's worth.' But I said, 'No, I like to choose for myself; to—ah—exercise my own judgment in these matters. And there's a young fellow I have in my eye who'll beat 'em all, if he's given the chance. I'm off to see him now.' And off I went to Great Cloister Street (for he hadn't those palatial offices of his in Victoria Street at that time) without losing another instant, and dropped in on him with my little commission. Didn't I, Ventimore?"
"You did indeed," said Horace, wondering how far these reminiscences would go.
"And," continued Mr. Wackerbath, patting Horace on the shoulder, "from that day to this I've never had a moment's reason to regret it. We've worked in perfect sympathy. His ideas coincided with mine. I think he found that I met him, so to speak, on all fours."
Ventimore assented, though it struck him that a happier expression might, and would, have been employed if his client had remembered one particular interview in which he had not figured to advantage.
They went in to dinner, in a room sumptuously decorated with panels of grey-green brocade and softly shaded lamps, and screens of gilded leather; throughthe centre of the table rose a tall palm, its boughs hung with small electric globes like magic fruits.
"This palm," said the Professor, who was in high good humour, "really gives quite an Oriental look to the table. Personally, I think we might reproduce the Arabian style of decoration and arrangement generally in our homes with great advantage. I often wonder it never occurred to my future son-in-law there to turn his talents in that direction and design an Oriental interior for himself. Nothing more comfortable and luxurious—for a bachelor's purposes."
"I'm sure," said his wife, "Horace managed to make himself quite comfortable enough as it was. He has the most delightful rooms in Vincent Square." Ventimore heard her remark to Sir Lawrence: "I shall never forget the first time we dined there, just after my daughter and he were engaged. I was quite astonished: everything was so perfect—quite simple, you know, butsoingeniously arranged, and his landlady such an excellent cook, too! Still, of course, in many ways, it will be nicer for him to have a home of his own."
"With such a beautiful and charming companion to share it with," said Sir Lawrence, in his most florid manner, "the—ah—poorest home would prove a Paradise indeed! And I suppose now, my dear young lady," he added, raising his voice to address Sylvia, "you are busy making your future abode as exquisite as taste and research can render it, ransacking all the furniture shops in London for treasures, and going about to auctions—or do you—ah—delegate that department to Mr. Ventimore?"
"I do go about to old furniture shops, Sir Lawrence," she said, "but not auctions. I'm afraid I should only get just the thing I didn't want if I tried to bid.... And," she added, in a lower voice, turning to Horace, "I don't believeyouwould be a bit more successful, Horace!"
"What makes you say that, Sylvia?" he asked, with a start.
"Why, do you mean to say you've forgotten how you went to that auction for papa, and came away without having managed to get a single thing?" she said. "What a short memory you must have!"
There was only tender mockery in her eyes; absolutely no recollection of the sinister purchase he had made at that sale, or how nearly it had separated them for ever. So he hastened to admit that perhaps he hadnotbeen particularly successful at the auction in question.
Sir Lawrence next addressed him across the table. "I was just telling Mrs. Futvoye," he said, "how much I regretted that I had not the privilege of your acquaintance during my year of office. A Lord Mayor, as you doubtless know, has exceptional facilities for exercising hospitality, and it would have afforded me real pleasure if your first visit to the Guildhall could have been paid under my—hm—ha—auspices."
"You are very kind," said Horace, very much on his guard; "I could not wish to pay it under better."
"I flatter myself," said the ex-Lord Mayor, "that, while in office, I did my humble best to maintain the traditions of the City, and I was fortunate enough to have the honour of receiving more than the average number of celebrities as guests. But I had one great disappointment, I must tell you. It had always been a dream of mine that it might fall to my lot to present some distinguished fellow-countryman with the freedom of the City. By some curious chance, when the opportunity seemed about to occur, the thing was put off and I missed it—missed it by the nearest hair-breadth!"
"Ah, well, Sir Lawrence," said Ventimore, "one can't haveeverything!"
"For my part," put in Lady Pountney, who had only caught a word or two of her husband's remarks, "whatImiss most is having the sentinels present arms whenever I went out for a drive. They did it so nicely and respectfully. I confess I enjoyed that. My husband never cared much for it. Indeed, he wouldn't even usethe State coach unless he was absolutely obliged. He was as obstinate as a mule about it!"
"I see, Lady Pountney," the Professor put in, "that you share the common prejudice against mules. It's quite a mistaken one. The mule has never been properly appreciated in this country. He is really the gentlest and most docile of creatures!"
"I can't say I like them myself," said Lady Pountney; "such a mongrel sort of animal—neither one thing nor the other!"
"And they're hideous too, Anthony," added his wife. "And not at all clever!"
"There you're mistaken, my dear," said the Professor; "they are capable of almost human intelligence. I have had considerable personal experience of what a mule can do," he informed Lady Pountney, who seemed still incredulous. "More than most people indeed, and I can assure you, my dear Lady Pountney, that they readily adapt themselves to almost any environment, and will endure the greatest hardships without exhibiting any signs of distress. I see by your expression, Ventimore, that you don't agree with me, eh?"
Horace had to set his teeth hard for a moment, lest he should disgrace himself by a peal of untimely mirth—but by a strong effort of will he managed to command his muscles.
"Well, sir," he said, "I've only chanced to come into close contact with one mule in my life, and, frankly, I've no desire to repeat the experience."
"You happened to come upon an unfavourable specimen, that's all," said the Professor. "There are exceptions to every rule."
"This animal," Horace said, "was certainly exceptional enough in every way."
"Do tell us all about it," pleaded one of the Miss Wackerbaths, and all the ladies joined in the entreaty until Horace found himself under the necessity of improvising a story, which, it must be confessed, fell exceedingly flat.
This final ordeal past, he grew silent and thoughtful, as he sat there by Sylvia's side, looking out through the glazed gallery outside upon the spring foliage along the Embankment, the opaline river, and the shot towers and buildings on the opposite bank glowing warm brown against an evening sky of silvery blue.
Not for the first time did it seem strange, incredible almost, to him that all these people should be so utterly without any recollection of events which surely might have been expected to leave some trace upon the least retentive memory—and yet it only proved once more how thoroughly and honourably the old Jinnee, now slumbering placidly in his bottle deep down in unfathomable mud, opposite the very spot where they were dining, had fulfilled his last undertaking.
Fakrash, the brass bottle, and all the fantastic and embarrassing performances were indeed as totally forgotten as though they had never been.
* * * * *
And it is but too probable that even this modest and veracious account of them will prove to have been included in the general act of oblivion—though the author will trust as long as possible that Fakrash-el-Aamash may have neglected to provide for this particular case, and that the history of the Brass Bottle may thus be permitted to linger awhile in the memories of some at least of its readers.