The Brass Bottle Part 36

"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."

"d.a.m.n it!" said Horace, completely losing his temper. "_I_ know what it was used for. _Will_ you tell me what you want for it?"

"I couldn't let a curiosity like that go a penny under thirty s.h.i.+llings," 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."

"_My_ last 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 he dared not go back without it, and he had nothing about him just then on which he could raise the extra ten s.h.i.+llings, 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 a.s.sure 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 should _I_ have the seal? This is but a fresh device of thine to undo me!"

"Don't talk rubbis.h.!.+" 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 a.s.sumed 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, _do_ try 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-a.s.suming 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 this bottle, 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 keep _your_ part of the bargain first. You will kindly obliterate all recollection of yourself and the bra.s.s 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, leave _me_ out, then," said Horace. "Not that anything could make me forget _you_!"

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 lose _him_, 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 grat.i.tude, 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 treating _him_? 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 the vessel, 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.