Part 17 (1/2)
”Art thou content with this dwelling I have provided for thee?” inquired the Jinnee, glancing around the stately hall with perceptible complacency.
It would have been positively brutal to say how very far from contented he felt, so Horace could only mumble that he had never been lodged like that before in all his life.
”It is far below thy deserts,” Fakrash observed graciously. ”And were thy friends amazed at the manner of their entertainment?”
”They were,” said Horace.
”A sure method of preserving friends is to feast them with liberality,”
remarked the Jinnee.
This was rather more than Horace's temper could stand. ”You were kind enough to provide my friends with such a feast,” he said, ”that they'll never come _here_ again.”
”How so? Were not the meats choice and abounding in fatness? Was not the wine sweet, and the sherbet like unto perfumed snow?”
”Oh, everything was--er--as nice as possible,” said Horace. ”Couldn't have been better.”
”Yet thou sayest that thy friends will return no more--for what reason?”
”Well, you see,” explained Horace, reluctantly, ”there's such a thing as doing people _too_ well. I mean, it isn't everybody that appreciates Arabian cooking. But they might have stood that. It was the dancing-girl that did for me.”
”I commanded that a houri, lovelier than the full moon, and graceful as a young gazelle, should appear for the delight of thy guests.”
”She came,” said Horace, gloomily.
”Acquaint me with that which hath occurred--for I perceive plainly that something hath fallen out contrary to thy desires.”
”Well,” said Horace, ”if it had been a bachelor party, there would have been no harm in the houri; but, as it happened, two of my guests were ladies, and they--well, they not unnaturally put a wrong construction on it all.”
”Verily,” exclaimed the Jinnee, ”thy words are totally incomprehensible to me.”
”I don't know what the custom may be in Arabia,” said Horace, ”but with us it is not usual for a man to engage a houri to dance after dinner to amuse the lady he is proposing to marry. It's the kind of attention she'd be most unlikely to appreciate.
”Then was one of thy guests the damsel whom thou art seeking to marry?”
”She was,” said Horace, ”and the other two were her father and mother.
From which you may imagine that it was not altogether agreeable for me when your gazelle threw herself at my feet and hugged my knees and declared that I was the light of her eyes. Of course, it all meant nothing--it's probably the conventional behaviour for a gazelle, and I'm not reflecting upon her in the least. But, in the circ.u.mstances, it _was_ compromising.”
”I thought,” said Fakrash, ”that thou a.s.suredst me that thou wast not contracted to any damsel?”
”I think I only said that there was no one whom I would trouble you to procure as a wife for me,” replied Horace; ”I certainly was engaged--though, after this evening, my engagement is at an end--unless ... that reminds me, do you happen to know whether there really _was_ an inscription on the seal of your bottle, and what it said?”
”I know naught of any inscription,” said the Jinnee; ”bring me the seal that I may see it.”
”I haven't got it by me at this moment,” said Horace; ”I lent it to my friend--the father of this young lady I told you of. You see, Mr.
Fakrash, you got me into--I mean, I was in such a hole over this affair that I was obliged to make a clean breast of it to him. And he wouldn't believe it, so it struck me that there might be an inscription of some sort on the seal, saying who you were, and why Solomon had you confined in the bottle. Then the Professor would be obliged to admit that there's something in my story.”
”Truly, I wonder at thee and at the smallness of thy penetration,” the Jinnee commented; ”for if there were indeed any writing upon this seal, it is not possible that one of thy race should be able to decipher it.”
”Oh, I beg your pardon,” said Horace; ”Professor Futvoye is an Oriental scholar; he can make out any inscription, no matter how many thousands of years old it may be. If anything's there, he'll decipher it. The question is whether anything _is_ there.”