Part 29 (2/2)
”The Lord Mayor?” said Horace. ”Oh, he's unique. There's n.o.body in the world quite like him. He administers the law, and if there's any distress in any part of the earth he relieves it. He entertains monarchs and Princes and all kinds of potentates at his banquets, and altogether he's a tremendous swell.”
”Hath he dominion over the earth and the air and all that is therein?”
”Within his own precincts, I believe he has,” said Horace, rather lazily, ”but I really don't know precisely how wide his powers are.” He was vainly trying to recollect whether such matters as sky-signs, telephones, and telegraphs in the City were within the Lord Mayor's jurisdiction or the County Council's.
Fakrash remained silent just as they were driving underneath Charing Cross Railway Bridge, when he started perceptibly at the thunder of the trains overhead and the piercing whistles of the engines. ”Tell me,” he said, clutching Horace by the arm, ”what meaneth this?”
”You don't mean to say,” said Horace, ”that you have been about London all these days, and never noticed things like these before?”
”Till now,” said the Jinnee, ”I have had no leisure to observe them and discover their nature.”
”Well,” said Horace, anxious to let the Jinnee see that he had not the monopoly of miracles, ”since your days we have discovered how to tame or chain the great forces of Nature and compel them to do our will. We control the Spirits of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, and make them give us light and heat, carry our messages, fight our quarrels for us, transport us wherever we wish to go, with a certainty and precision that throw even your performances, my dear sir, entirely into the shade.”
Considering what a very large majority of civilised persons would be as powerless to construct the most elementary machine as to create the humblest kind of horse, it is not a little odd how complacently we credit ourselves with all the latest achievements of our generation.
Most of us accept the amazement of the simple-minded barbarian on his first introduction to modern inventions as a gratifying personal tribute: we feel a certain superiority, even if we magnanimously refrain from boastfulness. And yet our own particular share in these discoveries is limited to making use of them under expert guidance, which any barbarian, after overcoming his first terror, is quite as competent to do as we are.
It is a harmless vanity enough, and especially pardonable in Ventimore's case, when it was so desirable to correct any tendency to ”uppishness”
on the part of the Jinnee.
”And doth the Lord Mayor dispose of these forces at his will?” inquired Fakrash, on whom Ventimore's explanation had evidently produced some impression.
”Certainly,” said Horace; ”whenever he has occasion.”
The Jinnee seemed engrossed in his own thoughts, for he said no more just then.
They were now nearing St. Paul's Cathedral, and Horace's first suspicion returned with double force.
”Mr. Fakrash, answer me,” he said. ”Is this my wedding day or not? If it is, it's time I was told!”
”Not yet,” said the Jinnee, enigmatically, and indeed it proved to be another false alarm, for they turned down Cannon Street and towards the Mansion House.
”Perhaps you can tell me why we're going through Victoria Street, and what all this crowd has come out for?” asked Ventimore. For the throng was denser than ever; the people surged and swayed in serried ranks behind the City police, and gazed with a wonder and awe that for once seemed to have entirely silenced the c.o.c.kney instinct of _persiflage_.
”For what else but to do thee honour?” answered Fakrash.
”What bos.h.!.+” said Horace. ”They mistake me for the Shah or somebody--and no wonder, in this get-up.”
”Not so,” said the Jinnee. ”Thy names are familiar to them.”
Horace glanced up at the hastily improvised decorations; on one large strip of bunting which spanned the street he read: ”Welcome to the City's most distinguished guest!” ”They can't mean me,” he thought; and then another legend caught his eye: ”Well done, Ventimore!” And an enthusiastic householder next door had burst into poetry and displayed the couplet--
”Would we had twenty more Like Horace Ventimore!”
”They _do_ mean me!” he exclaimed. ”Now, Mr. Fakrash, _will_ you kindly explain what tomfoolery you've been up to now? I know you're at the bottom of this business.”
It struck him that the Jinnee was slightly embarra.s.sed. ”Didst thou not say,” he replied, ”that he who should receive the freedom of the City from his fellow-men would be worthy of Bedeea-el-Jemal?”
<script>