The Brass Bottle

"It is hardly necessary," said the Professor, conscious of being correctly clad, and unconscious that his shirt-front was bulging and his long-eared white tie beginning to work up towards his left jaw – "hardly necessary to offer any apology for the simplicity of your costume – which is entirely in keeping with the – ah – strictly Oriental character of your interior."

"I feel dreadfully out of keeping!" said Sylvia, "for there's nothing in the least Oriental about me– unless it's my scarab – and he's I don't know how many centuries behind the time, poor dear!"

"If you said 'thousands of years,' my dear," corrected the Professor, "you would be more accurate. That scarab was taken out of a tomb of the thirteenth dynasty."

"Well, I'm sure he'd rather be where he is," said Sylvia, and Ventimore entirely agreed with her. "Horace, I must look at everything. How clever and original of you to transform an ordinary London house into this!"

"Oh, well, you see," explained Horace, "it – it wasn't exactly done by me."

"Whoever did it," said the Professor, "must have devoted considerable study to Eastern art and architecture. May I ask the name of the firm who executed the alterations?"

"I really couldn't tell you, sir," answered Horace, who was beginning to understand how very bad a mauvais quart d'heure can be.

"You can't tell me!" exclaimed the Professor. "You order these extensive, and I should say expensive, decorations, and you don't know the firm you selected to carry them out!"

"Of course I know," said Horace, "only I don't happen to remember at this moment. Let me see, now. Was it Liberty? No, I'm almost certain it wasn't Liberty. It might have been Maple, but I'm not sure. Whoever did do it, they were marvellously cheap."

"I am glad to hear it," said the Professor, in his most unpleasant tone. "Where is your dining-room?"

"Why, I rather think," said Horace, helplessly, as he saw a train of attendants laying a round cloth on the floor, "I rather think this is the dining-room."

"You appear to be in some doubt?" said the Professor.

"I leave it to them – it depends where they choose to lay the cloth," said Horace. "Sometimes in one place; sometimes in another. There's a great charm in uncertainty," he faltered.

"Doubtless," said the Professor.

By this time two of the slaves, under the direction of a tall and turbaned black, had set a low ebony stool, inlaid with silver and tortoiseshell in strange devices, on the round carpet, when other attendants followed with a circular silver tray containing covered dishes, which they placed on the stool and salaamed.

"Your – ah – groom of the chambers," said the Professor, "seems to have decided that we should dine here. I observe they are making signs to you that the food is on the table."

"So it is," said Ventimore. "Shall we sit down?"

"But, my dear Horace," said Mrs. Futvoye, "your butler has forgotten the chairs."

"You don't appear to realise, my dear," said the Professor, "that in such an interior as this chairs would be hopelessly incongruous."

"I'm afraid there aren't any," said Horace, for there was nothing but four fat cushions. "Let's sit down on these," he proposed. "It – it's more fun!"

"At my time of life," said the Professor, irritably, as he let himself down on the plumpest cushion, "such fun as may be derived from eating one's meals on the floor fails to appeal to my sense of humour. However, I admit that it is thoroughly Oriental."

"I think it's delightful," said Sylvia; "ever so much nicer than a stiff, conventional dinner-party."

"One may be unconventional," remarked her father, "without escaping the penalty of stiffness. Go away, sir! go away!" he added snappishly, to one of the slaves, who was attempting to pour water over his hands. "Your servant, Ventimore, appears to imagine that I go out to dinner without taking the trouble to wash my hands previously. This, I may mention, is not the case."

"It's only an Eastern ceremony, Professor," said Horace.

"I am perfectly well aware of what is customary in the East," retorted the Professor; "it does not follow that such – ah – hygienic precautions are either necessary or desirable at a Western table."

Horace made no reply; he was too much occupied in gazing blankly at the silver dish-covers and wondering what in the world might be underneath; nor was his perplexity relieved when the covers were removed, for he was quite at a loss to guess how he was supposed to help the contents without so much as a fork.

The chief attendant, however, solved that difficulty by intimating in pantomime that the guests were expected to use their fingers.

Sylvia accomplished this daintily and with intense amusement, but her father and mother made no secret of their repugnance. "If I were dining in the desert with a Sheik, sir," observed the Professor, "I should, I hope, know how to conform to his habits and prejudices. Here, in the heart of London, I confess all this strikes me as a piece of needless pedantry."

"I'm very sorry," said Horace; "I'd have some knives and forks if I could – but I'm afraid these fellows don't even understand what they are, so it's useless to order any. We – we must rough it a little, that's all. I hope that – er – fish is all right, Professor?"

He did not know precisely what kind of fish it was, but it was fried in oil of sesame and flavoured with a mixture of cinnamon and ginger, and the Professor did not appear to be making much progress with it. Ventimore himself would have infinitely preferred the original cod and oyster sauce, but that could not be helped now.

"Thank you," said the Professor, "it is curious – but characteristic. Not any more, thank you."

Horace could only trust that the next course would be more of a success. It was a dish of mutton, stewed with peaches, jujubes and sugar, which Sylvia declared was delicious. Her parents made no comment.

"Might I ask for something to drink?" said the Professor, presently; whereupon a cupbearer poured him a goblet of iced sherbet perfumed with conserve of violets.

"I'm very sorry, my dear fellow," he said, after sipping it, "but if I drink this I shall be ill all next day. If I might have a glass of wine – "

Another slave instantly handed him a cup of wine, which he tasted and set down with a wry face and a shudder. Horace tried some afterwards, and was not surprised. It was a strong, harsh wine, in which goatskin and resin struggled for predominance.

"It's an old and, I make no doubt, a fine wine," observed the Professor, with studied politeness, "but I fancy it must have suffered in transportation. I really think that, with my gouty tendency, a little whisky and Apollinaris would be better for me – if you keep such occidental fluids in the house?"

Horace felt convinced that it would be useless to order the slaves to bring whisky or Apollinaris, which were of course, unknown in the Jinnee's time, so he could do nothing but apologise for their absence.

"No matter," said the Professor; "I am not so thirsty that I cannot wait till I get home."

It was some consolation that both Sylvia and her mother commended the sherbet, and even appreciated – or were so obliging as to say they appreciated – the entrée, which consisted of rice and mincemeat wrapped in vine-leaves, and certainly was not appetising in appearance, besides being difficult to dispose of gracefully.

It was followed by a whole lamb fried in oil, stuffed with pounded pistachio nuts, pepper, nutmeg, and coriander seeds, and liberally besprinkled with rose-water and musk.

Only Horace had sufficient courage to attack the lamb – and he found reason to regret it. Afterwards came fowls stuffed with raisins, parsley, and crumbled bread, and the banquet ended with pastry of weird forms and repellent aspect.

"I hope," said Horace, anxiously, "you don't find this Eastern cookery very – er – unpalatable?" – he himself was feeling distinctly unwell: "it's rather a change from the ordinary routine."

"I have made a truly wonderful dinner, thank you," replied the Professor, not, it is to be feared, without intention. "Even in the East I have eaten nothing approaching this."

"But where did your landlady pick up this extraordinary cooking, my dear Horace?" said Mrs. Futvoye. "I thought you said she was merely a plain cook. Has she ever lived in the East?"

"Not exactly in the East," exclaimed Horace; "not what you would call living there. The fact is," he continued, feeling that he was in danger of drivelling, and that he had better be as candid as he could, "this dinner wasn't cooked by her. She – she was obliged to go away quite suddenly. So the dinner was all sent in by – by a sort of contractor, you know. He supplies the whole thing, waiters and all."

"I was thinking," said the Professor, "that for a bachelor – an engaged bachelor – you seemed to maintain rather a large establishment."

"Oh, they're only here for the evening, sir," said Horace. "Capital fellows – more picturesque than the local greengrocer – and they don't breathe on the top of your head."

"They're perfect dears, Horace," remarked Sylvia; "only – well, just a little creepy-crawly to look at!"

"It would ill become me to criticise the style and method of our entertainment," put in the Professor, acidly, "otherwise I might be tempted to observe that it scarcely showed that regard for economy which I should have – "

"Now, Anthony," put in his wife, "don't let us have any fault-finding. I'm sure Horace has done it all delightfully – yes, delightfully; and even if he has been just a little extravagant, it's not as if he was obliged to be as economical now, you know!"

"My dear," said the Professor, "I have yet to learn that the prospect of an increased income in the remote future is any justification for reckless profusion in the present."

"If you only knew," said Horace, "you wouldn't call it profusion. It – it's not at all the dinner I meant it to be, and I'm afraid it wasn't particularly nice – but it's certainly not expensive."

"Expensive is, of course, a very relative term. But I think I have the right to ask whether this is the footing on which you propose to begin your married life?"

It was an extremely awkward question, as the reader will perceive. If Ventimore replied – as he might with truth – that he had no intention whatever of maintaining his wife in luxury such as that, he stood convicted of selfish indulgence as a bachelor; if, on the other hand, he declared that he did propose to maintain his wife in the same fantastic and exaggerated splendour as the present, it would certainly confirm her father's disbelief in his prudence and economy.

And it was that egregious old ass of a Jinnee, as Horace thought, with suppressed rage, who had let him in for all this, and who was now far beyond all remonstrance or reproach!

Before he could bring himself to answer the question, the attendants had noiselessly removed the tray and stool, and were handing round rosewater in a silver ewer and basin, the character of which, luckily or otherwise, turned the Professor's inquisitiveness into a different channel.

"These are not bad – really not bad at all," he said, inspecting the design. "Where did you manage to pick them up?"

"I didn't," said Horace; "they're provided by the – the person who supplies the dinner."

"Can you give me his address?" said the Professor, scenting a bargain; "because really, you know, these things are probably antiques – much too good to be used for business purposes."

"I'm wrong," said Horace, lamely; "these particular things are – are lent by an eccentric Oriental gentleman, as a great favour."

"Do I know him? Is he a collector of such things?"

"You wouldn't have met him; he – he's lived a very retired life of late."

"I should very much like to see his collection. If you could give me a letter of introduction – "

"No," said Horace, in a state of prickly heat; "it wouldn't be any use. His collection is never shown. He – he's a most peculiar man. And just now he's abroad."

"Ah! pardon me if I've been indiscreet; but I concluded from what you said that this – ah – banquet was furnished by a professional caterer."

"Oh, the banquet? Yes, that came from the Stores," said Horace, mendaciously. "The – the Oriental Cookery Department. They've just started it, you know; so – so I thought I'd give them a trial. But it's not what I call properly organised yet."

The slaves were now, with low obeisances, inviting them to seat themselves on the divan which lined part of the hall.

"Ha!" said the Professor, as he rose from his cushion, cracking audibly, "so we're to have our coffee and what not over there, hey?.. Well, my boy, I shan't be sorry, I confess, to have something to lean my back against – and a cigar, a mild cigar, will – ah – aid digestion. You do smoke here?"

"Smoke?" said Horace, "Why, of course! All over the place. Here," he said, clapping his hands, which brought an obsequious slave instantly to his side; "just bring coffee and cigars, will you?"

The slave rolled his brandy-ball eyes in obvious perplexity.

"Coffee," said Horace; "you must know what coffee is. And cigarettes. Well, chibouks, then – 'hubble-bubbles' – if that's what you call them."

But the slave clearly did not understand, and it suddenly struck Horace that, since 'tobacco and coffee were not introduced, even in the East, till long after the Jinnee's time, he, as the founder of the feast, would naturally be unaware how indispensable they had become at the present day.

"I'm really awfully sorry," he said; "but they don't seem to have provided any. I shall speak to the manager about it. And, unfortunately, I don't know where my own cigars are."

"It's of no consequence," said the Professor, with the sort of stoicism that minds very much. "I am a moderate smoker at best, and Turkish coffee, though delicious, is apt to keep me awake. But if you could let me have a look at that brass bottle you got at poor Collingham's sale, I should be obliged to you."

Horace had no idea where it was then, nor could he, until the Professor came to the rescue with a few words of Arabic, manage to make the slaves comprehend what he wished them to find.

At length, however, two of them appeared, bearing the brass bottle with every sign of awe, and depositing it at Ventimore's feet.

Professor Futvoye, after wiping and adjusting his glasses, proceeded to examine the vessel. "It certainly is a most unusual type of brassware," he said, "as unique in its way as the silver ewer and basin; and, as you thought, there does seem to be something resembling an inscription on the cap, though in this dim light it is almost impossible to be sure."

While he was poring over it, Horace seated himself on the divan by Sylvia's side, hoping for one of the whispered conversations permitted to affianced lovers; he had pulled through the banquet somehow, and on the whole he felt thankful things had not gone off worse. The noiseless and uncanny attendants, whom he did not know whether to regard as Efreets, or demons, or simply illusions, but whose services he had no wish to retain, had all withdrawn. Mrs. Futvoye was peacefully slumbering, and her husband was in a better humour than he had been all the evening.

Suddenly from behind the hangings of one of the archways came strange, discordant sounds, barbaric janglings and thumpings, varied by yowls as of impassioned cats.

Sylvia drew involuntarily closer to Horace; her mother woke with a start, and the Professor looked up from the brass bottle with returning irritation.

"What's this? What's this?" he demanded; "some fresh surprise in store for us?"

It was quite as much of a surprise for Horace, but he was spared the humiliation of owning it by the entrance of some half-dozen dusky musicians swathed in white and carrying various strangely fashioned instruments, with which they squatted down in a semi-circle by the opposite wall, and began to twang, and drub, and squall with the complacent cacophony of an Eastern orchestra. Clearly Fakrash was determined that nothing should be wanting to make the entertainment a complete success.

"What a very extraordinary noise!" said Mrs. Futvoye; "surely they can't mean it for music?"

"Yes, they do," said Horace; "it – it's really more harmonious than it sounds – you have to get accustomed to the – er – notation. When you do, it's rather soothing than otherwise."

"I dare say," said the poor lady. "And do they come from the Stores, too?"

"No," said Horace, with a fine assumption of candour, "they don't; they come from – the Arab Encampment at Earl's Court – parties and fêtes attended, you know. But they play here for nothing; they – they want to get their name known, you see; very deserving and respectable set of fellows."

"My dear Horace!" remarked Mrs. Futvoye, "if they expect to get engagements for parties and so on, they really ought to try and learn a tune of some sort."

"I understand, Horace," whispered Sylvia, "it's very naughty of you to have gone to all this trouble and expense (for, of course, it has cost you a lot) just to please us; but, whatever, dad may say, I love you all the better for doing it!"

And her hand stole softly into his, and he felt that he could forgive Fakrash everything, even – even the orchestra.

But there was something unpleasantly spectral about their shadowy forms, which showed in grotesquely baggy and bulgy shapes in the uncertain light. Some of them wore immense and curious white head-dresses, which gave them the appearance of poulticed thumbs; and they all went on scraping and twiddling and caterwauling with a doleful monotony that Horace felt must be getting on his guests' nerves, as it certainly was on his own.

He did not know how to get rid of them, but he sketched a kind of gesture in the air, intended to intimate that, while their efforts had afforded the keenest pleasure to the company generally, they were unwilling to monopolise them any longer, and the artists were at liberty to retire.

Perhaps there is no art more liable to misconstruction than pantomime; certainly, Ventimore's efforts in this direction were misunderstood, for the music became wilder, louder, more aggressively and abominably out of tune – and then a worse thing happened.

For the curtains separated, and, heralded by sharp yelps from the performers, a female figure floated into the hall and began to dance with a slow and sinuous grace.

Her beauty, though of a pronounced Oriental type, was unmistakable, even in the subdued light which fell on her; her diaphanous robe indicated a faultless form; her dark tresses were braided with sequins; she had the long, lustrous eyes, the dusky cheeks artificially whitened, and the fixed scarlet smile of the Eastern dancing-girl of all time.

And she paced the floor with her tinkling feet, writhing and undulating like some beautiful cobra, while the players worked themselves up to yet higher and higher stages of frenzy.

Ventimore, as he sat there looking helplessly on, felt a return of his resentment against the Jinnee. It was really too bad of him; he ought, at his age, to have known better!

Not that there was anything objectionable in the performance itself; but still, it was not the kind of entertainment for such an occasion. Horace wished now he had mentioned to Fakrash who the guests were whom he expected, and then perhaps even the Jinnee would have exercised more tact in his arrangements.

"And does this girl come from Earl's Court?" inquired Mrs. Futvoye, who was now thoroughly awake.

"Oh dear, no," said Horace; "I engaged her at – at Harrod's – the Entertainment Bureau. They told me there she was rather good – struck out a line of her own, don't you know. But perfectly correct; she – she only does this to support an invalid aunt."

These statements were, as he felt even in making them, not only gratuitous, but utterly unconvincing, but he had arrived at that condition in which a man discovers with terror the unsuspected amount of mendacity latent in his system.

"I should have thought there were other ways of supporting invalid aunts," remarked Mrs. Futvoye. "What is this young lady's name?"

"Tinkler," said Horace, on the spur of the moment. "Miss Clementine Tinkler."

"But surely she is a foreigner?"

"Mademoiselle, I ought to have said. And Tinkla – with an 'a,' you know. I believe her mother was of Arabian extraction – but I really don't know," explained Horace, conscious that Sylvia had withdrawn her hand from his, and was regarding him with covert anxiety.

"I really must put a stop to this," he thought.

"You're getting bored by all this, darling," he said aloud; "so am I. I'll tell them to go." And he rose and held out his hand as a sign that the dance should cease.

It ceased at once; but, to his unspeakable horror, the dancer crossed the floor with a swift jingling rush, and sank in a gauzy heap at his feet, seizing his hand in both hers and covering it with kisses, while she murmured speeches in some tongue unknown to him.

"Is this a usual feature in Miss Tinkla's entertainments, may I ask?" said Mrs. Futvoye, bristling with not unnatural indignation.

"I really don't know," said the unhappy Horace; "I can't make out what she's saying."

"If I understand her rightly," said the Professor, "she is addressing you as the 'light of her eyes and the vital spirit of her heart.'"

"Oh!" said Horace, "she's quite mistaken, you know. It – it's the emotional artist temperament – they don't mean anything by it. My – my dear young lady," he added, "you've danced most delightfully, and I'm sure we're all most deeply indebted to you; but we won't detain you any longer. Professor," he added, as she made no offer to rise, "will you kindly explain to them in Arabic that I should be obliged by their going at once?"

The Professor said a few words, which had the desired effect. The girl gave a little scream and scudded through the archway, and the musicians seized their instruments and scuttled after her.

"I am so sorry," said Horace, whose evening seemed to him to have been chiefly spent in apologies; "it's not at all the kind of entertainment one would expect from a place like Whiteley's."

"By no means," agreed the Professor; "but I understood you to say Miss Tinkla was recommended to you by Harrod's?"

"Very likely, sir," said Horace; "but that doesn't affect the case. I shouldn't expect it from them."

"Probably they don't know how shamelessly that young person conducts herself," said Mrs. Futvoye. "And I think it only right that they should be told."

"I shall complain, of course," said Horace. "I shall put it very strongly."

"A protest would have more weight coming from a woman," said Mrs. Futvoye; "and, as a shareholder in the company, I shall feel bound – "

"No, I wouldn't," said Horace; "in fact, you mustn't. For, now I come to think of it, she didn't come from Harrod's, after all, or Whiteley's either."

"Then perhaps you will be good enough to inform us where she did come from?"

"I would if I knew," said Horace; "but I don't."

"What!" cried the Professor, sharply, "do you mean to say you can't account for the existence of a dancing-girl who – in my daughter's presence – kisses your hand and addresses you by endearing epithets?"

"Oriental metaphor!" said Horace. "She was a little overstrung. Of course, if I had had any idea she would make such a scene as that – Sylvia," he broke off, "you don't doubt me?"

"No, Horace," said Sylvia, simply, "I'm sure you must have some explanation – only I do think it would be better if you gave it."

"If I told you the truth," said Horace, slowly, "you would none of you believe me!"

"Then you admit," put in the Professor, "that hitherto you have not been telling the truth?"

"Not as invariably as I could have wished," Horace confessed.

"So I suspected. Then, unless you can bring yourself to be perfectly candid, you can hardly wonder at our asking you to consider your engagement as broken off?"