The Brass Bottle Part 18

"Oh, _shall_ I, though? They'll go to law and have me turned out, and I shall have to pay ruinous damages into the bargain. So, you see, what you intended as a kindness will only bring me bad luck."

"Come--without more words--to the statement of thy request," said Fakrash, "for I am in haste."

"All I want you to do," replied Horace, in some anxiety as to what the effect of his request would be, "is to put everything here back to what it was before. It won't take you a minute."

"Of a truth," exclaimed Fakrash, "to bestow a favour upon thee is but a thankless undertaking, for not once, but twice, hast thou rejected my benefits--and now, behold, I am at a loss to devise means to gratify thee!"

"I know I've abused your good nature," said Horace; "but if you'll only do this, and then convince the Professor that my story is true, I shall be more than satisfied. I'll never ask another favour of you!"

"My benevolence towards thee hath no bounds--as thou shalt see; and I can deny thee nothing, for truly thou art a worthy and temperate young man. Farewell, then, and be it according to thy desire."

He raised his arms above his head, and shot up like a rocket towards the lofty dome, which split asunder to let him pa.s.s. Horace, as he gazed after him, had a momentary glimpse of deep blue sky, with a star or two that seemed to be hurrying through the transparent opal scud, before the roof closed in once more.

Then came a low, rumbling sound, with a shock like a mild earthquake: the slender pillars swayed under their horseshoe arches; the big hanging-lanterns went out; the walls narrowed, and the floor heaved and rose--till Ventimore found himself up in his own familiar sitting-room once more, in the dark. Outside he could see the great square still shrouded in grey haze--the street lamps flickering in the wind; a belated reveller was beguiling his homeward way by rattling his stick against the railings as he pa.s.sed.

Inside the room everything was exactly as before, and Horace found it difficult to believe that a few minutes earlier he had been standing on that same site, but twenty feet or so below his present level, in a s.p.a.cious blue-tiled hall, with a domed ceiling and gaudy pillared arches.

But he was very far from regretting his short-lived splendour; he burnt with shame and resentment whenever he thought of that nightmare banquet, which was so unlike the quiet, unpretentious little dinner he had looked forward to.

However, it was over now, and it was useless to worry himself about what could not be helped. Besides, fortunately, there was no great harm done; the Jinnee had been brought to see his mistake, and, to do him justice, had shown himself willing enough to put it right. He had promised to go and see the Professor next day, and the result of the interview could not fail to be satisfactory. And after this, Ventimore thought, Fakrash would have the sense and good feeling not to interfere in his affairs again.

Meanwhile he could sleep now with a mind free from his worst anxieties, and he went to his room in a spirit of intense thankfulness that he had a Christian bed to sleep in. He took off his gorgeous robes--the only things that remained to prove to him that the events of that evening had been no delusion--and locked them in his wardrobe with a sense of relief that he would never be required to wear them again, and his last conscious thought before he fell asleep was the comforting reflection that, if there were any barrier between Sylvia and himself, it would be removed in the course of a very few more hours.

CHAPTER XI

A FOOL'S PARADISE

Ventimore found next morning that his bath and shaving-water had been brought up, from which he inferred, quite correctly, that his landlady must have returned.

Secretly he was by no means looking forward to his next interview with her, but she appeared with his bacon and coffee in a spirit so evidently chastened that he saw that he would have no difficulty so far as she was concerned.

"I'm sure, Mr. Ventimore, sir," she began, apologetically, "I don't know what you must have thought of me and Rapkin last night, leaving the house like we did!"

"It was extremely inconvenient," said Horace, "and not at all what I should have expected from you. But possibly you had some reason for it?"

"Why, sir," said Mrs. Rapkin, running her hand nervously along the back of a chair, "the fact is, something come over me, and come over Rapkin, as we couldn't stop here another minute not if it was ever so."

"Ah!" said Horace, raising his eyebrows, "restlessness--eh, Mrs. Rapkin?

Awkward that it should come on just then, though, wasn't it?"

"It was the look of the place, somehow," said Mrs. Rapkin. "If you'll believe me, sir, it was all changed like--nothing in it the same from top to bottom!"

"Really?" said Horace. "I don't notice any difference myself."

"No more don't I, sir, not by daylight; but last night it was all domes and harches and marble fountings let into the floor, with parties moving about downstairs all silent and as black as your hat--which Rapkin saw them as well as what I did."

"From the state your husband was in last night," said Horace, "I should say he was capable of seeing anything--and double of most things."

"I won't deny, sir, that Rapkin mayn't have been quite hisself, as a very little upsets him after he's spent an afternoon studying the papers and what-not at the libery. But I see the n.i.g.g.e.rs too, Mr. Ventimore, and no one can say _I_ ever take more than is good for me."

"I don't suggest that for a moment, Mrs. Rapkin," said Horace; "only, if the house was as you describe last night, how do you account for its being all right this morning?"

Mrs. Rapkin in her embarra.s.sment was reduced to folding her ap.r.o.n into small pleats. "It's not for me to say, sir," she replied, "but, if I was to give my opinion, it would be as them parties as called 'ere on camels the other day was at the bottom of it."

"I shouldn't wonder if you were right, Mrs. Rapkin," said Horace blandly; "you see, you had been exerting yourself over the cooking, and no doubt were in an over-excited state, and, as you say, those camels had taken hold of your imagination until you were ready to see anything that Rapkin saw, and _he_ was ready to see anything _you_ did. It's not at all uncommon. Scientific people, I believe, call it 'Collective Hallucination.'"

"Law, sir!" said the good woman, considerably impressed by this diagnosis, "you don't mean to say I had _that_? I was always fanciful from a girl, and could see things in coffee-grounds as n.o.body else could--but I never was took like that before. And to think of me leaving my dinner half cooked, and you expecting your young lady and her pa and ma! Well, _there_, now, I _am_ sorry. Whatever did you do, sir?"

"We managed to get food of sorts from somewhere," said Horace, "but it was most uncomfortable for me, and I trust, Mrs. Rapkin--I sincerely trust that it will not occur again."

"That I'll answer for it shan't, sir. And you won't take no notice to Rapkin, sir, will you? Though it was his seein' the n.i.g.g.e.rs and that as put it into my 'ed; but I 'ave spoke to him pretty severe already, and he's truly sorry and ashamed for forgetting hisself as he did."

"Very well, Mrs. Rapkin," said Horace; "we will understand that last night's--hem--rather painful experience is not to be alluded to again--on either side."

He felt sincerely thankful to have got out of it so easily, for it was impossible to say what gossip might not have been set on foot if the Rapkins had not been brought to see the advisability of reticence on the subject.

"There's one more thing, sir, I wished for to speak to you about," said Mrs. Rapkin; "that great bra.s.s vawse as you bought at an oction some time back. I dunno if you remember it?"

"I remember it," said Horace. "Well, what about it?"

"Why, sir, I found it in the coal-cellar this morning, and I thought I'd ask if that was where you wished it kep' in future. For, though no amount o' polish could make it what I call a tasty thing, it's neither horniment nor yet useful where it is at present."

"Oh," said Horace, rather relieved, for he had an ill-defined dread from her opening words that the bottle might have been misbehaving itself in some way. "Put it wherever you please, Mrs. Rapkin; do whatever you like with it--so long as I don't see the thing again!"

"Very good, sir; I on'y thought I'd ask the question," said Mrs. Rapkin, as she closed the door upon herself.

Altogether, Horace walked to Great Cloister Street that morning in a fairly cheerful mood and amiably disposed, even towards the Jinnee. With all his many faults, he was a thoroughly good-natured old devil--very superior in every way to the one the Arabian Nights fisherman found in _his_ bottle.

"Ninety-nine Jinn out of a hundred," thought Horace, "would have turned nasty on finding benefit after benefit 'declined with thanks.' But one good point in Fakrash is that he _does_ take a hint in good part, and, as soon as he can be made to see where he's wrong, he's always ready to set things right. And he thoroughly understands now that these Oriental dodges of his won't do nowadays, and that when people see a penniless man suddenly wallowing in riches they naturally want to know how he came by them. I don't suppose he will trouble me much in future. If he should look in now and then, I must put up with it. Perhaps, if I suggested it, he wouldn't mind coming in some form that would look less outlandish. If he would get himself up as a banker, or a bishop--the Bishop of Bagdad, say--I shouldn't care how often he called. Only, I can't have him coming down the chimney in either capacity. But he'll see that himself. And he's done me one real service--I mustn't let myself forget that. He sent me old Wackerbath. By the way, I wonder if he's seen my designs yet, and what he thinks of them."

He was at his table, engaged in jotting down some rough ideas for the decoration of the reception-rooms in the projected house, when Beevor came in.

"I've got nothing doing just now," he said; "so I thought I'd come in and have a squint at those plans of yours, if they're forward enough to be seen yet."

Ventimore had to explain that even the imperfect method of examination proposed was not possible, as he had despatched the drawings to his client the night before.

"Phew!" said Beevor; "that's sharp work, isn't it?"

"I don't know. I've been sticking hard at it for over a fortnight."

"Well, you might have given me a chance of seeing what you've made of it. I let you see all _my_ work!"

"To tell you the honest truth, old fellow, I wasn't at all sure you'd like it, and I was afraid you'd put me out of conceit with what I'd done, and Wackerbath was in a frantic hurry to have the plans--so there it was."