The Brass Bottle

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 niggers 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 embarrassment was reduced to folding her apron 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 nobody 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 niggers 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 brass 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."

"And do you think he'll be satisfied with them?"

"He ought to be. I don't like to be cock-sure, but I believe – I really do believe – that I've given him rather more than he expected. It's going to be a devilish good house, though I say it myself."

"Something new-fangled and fantastic, eh? Well, he mayn't care about it, you know. When you've had my experience, you'll realise that a client is a rum bird to satisfy."

"I shall satisfy my old bird," said Horace, gaily. "He'll have a cage he can hop about in to his heart's content."

"You're a clever chap enough," said Beevor; "but to carry a big job like this through you want one thing – and that's ballast."

"Not while you heave yours at my head! Come, old fellow, you aren't really riled because I sent off those plans without showing them to you? I shall soon have them back, and then you can pitch into 'em as much as you please. Seriously, though, I shall want all the help you can spare when I come to the completed designs."

"'Um," said Beevor, "you've got along very well alone so far – at least, by your own account; so I dare say you'll be able to manage without me to the end. Only, you know," he added, as he left the room, "you haven't won your spurs yet. A fellow isn't necessarily a Gilbert Scott, or a Norman Shaw, or a Waterhouse just because he happens to get a sixty-thousand pound job the first go off!"

"Poor old Beevor!" thought Horace, repentantly, "I've put his back up. I might just as well have shown him the plans, after all; it wouldn't have hurt me and it would have pleased him. Never mind, I'll make my peace with him after lunch. I'll ask him to give me his idea for a – no, hang it all, even friendship has its limits!"

He returned from lunch to hear what sounded like an altercation of some sort in his office, in which, as he neared his door, Beevor's voice was distinctly audible.

"My dear sir," he was saying, "I have already told you that it is no affair of mine."

"But I ask you, sir, as a brother architect," said another voice, "whether you consider it professional or reasonable – ?"

"As a brother architect," replied Beevor, as Ventimore opened the door, "I would rather be excused from giving an opinion… Ah, here is Mr. Ventimore himself."

Horace entered, to find himself confronted by Mr. Wackerbath, whose face was purple and whose white whiskers were bristling with rage. "So, sir!" he began. "So, sir! – " and choked ignominiously.

"There appears to have been some misunderstanding, my dear Ventimore," explained Beevor, with a studious correctness which was only a shade less offensive than open triumph. "I think I'd better leave you and this gentleman to talk it over quietly."

"Quietly?" exclaimed Mr. Wackerbath, with an apoplectic snort; "quietly!!"

"I've no idea what you are so excited about, sir," said Horace. "Perhaps you will explain?"

"Explain!" Mr. Wackerbath gasped; "why – no, if I speak just now, I shall be ill: you tell him," he added, waving a plump hand in Beevor's direction.

"I'm not in possession of all the facts," said Beevor, smoothly; "but, so far as I can gather, this gentleman thinks that, considering the importance of the work he intrusted to your hands, you have given less time to it than he might have expected. As I have told him, that is a matter which does not concern me, and which he must discuss with you."

So saying, Beevor retired to his own room, and shut the door with the same irreproachable discretion, which conveyed that he was not in the least surprised, but was too much of a gentleman to show it.

"Well, Mr. Wackerbath," began Horace, when they were alone, "so you're disappointed with the house?"

"Disappointed!" said Mr. Wackerbath, furiously. "I am disgusted, sir, disgusted!"

Horace's heart sank lower still; had he deceived himself after all, then? Had he been nothing but a conceited fool, and – most galling thought of all – had Beevor judged him only too accurately? And yet, no, he could not believe it – he knew his work was good!

"This is plain speaking with a vengeance," he said; "I'm sorry you're dissatisfied. I did my best to carry out your instructions."

"Oh, you did?" sputtered Mr. Wackerbath. "That's what you call – but go on, sir, go on!"

"I got it done as quickly as possible," continued Horace, "because I understood you wished no time to be lost."

"No one can accuse you of dawdling over it. What I should like to know is how the devil you managed to get it done in the time?"

"I worked incessantly all day and every day," said Horace. "That's how I managed it – and this is all the thanks I get for it!"

"Thanks?" Mr. Wackerbath well-nigh howled. "You – you insolent young charlatan; you expect thanks!"

"Now look here, Mr. Wackerbath," said Horace, whose own temper was getting a little frayed. "I'm not accustomed to being treated like this, and I don't intend to submit to it. Just tell me – in as moderate language as you can command – what you object to?"

"I object to the whole damned thing, sir! I mean, I repudiate the entire concern. It's the work of a raving lunatic – a place that no English gentleman, sir, with any self-respect or – ah! – consideration for his reputation and position in the county, could consent to occupy for a single hour!"

"Oh," said Horace, feeling deathly sick, "in that case it is useless, of course, to suggest any modifications."

"Absolutely!" said Mr. Wackerbath.

"Very well, then; there's no more to be said," replied Horace. "You will have no difficulty in finding an architect who will be more successful in realising your intentions. Mr. Beevor, the gentleman you met just now," he added, with a touch of bitterness, "would probably be just your man. Of course I retire altogether. And really, if any one is the sufferer over this, I fancy it's myself. I can't see how you are any the worse."

"Not any the worse?" cried Mr. Wackerbath, "when the infernal place is built!"

"Built!" echoed Horace feebly.

"I tell you, sir, I saw it with my own eyes driving to the station this morning; my coachman and footman saw it; my wife saw it – damn it, sir, we all saw it!"

Then Horace understood. His indefatigable Jinnee had been at work again! Of course, for Fakrash it must have been what he would term "the easiest of affairs" – especially after a glance at the plans (and Ventimore remembered that the Jinnee had surprised him at work upon them, and even requested to have them explained to him) – to dispense with contractors and bricklayers and carpenters, and construct the entire building in the course of a single night.

It was a generous and spirited action – but, particularly now that the original designs had been found faulty and rejected, it placed the unfortunate architect in a most invidious position.

"Well, sir," said Mr. Wackerbath, with elaborate irony, "I presume it is you whom I have to thank for improving my land by erecting this precious palace on it?"

"I – I – " began Horace, utterly broken down; and then he saw, with emotions that may be imagined, the Jinnee himself, in his green robes, standing immediately behind Mr. Wackerbath.

"Greeting to you," said Fakrash, coming forward with his smile of amiable cunning. "If I mistake not," he added, addressing the startled estate agent, who had jumped visibly, "thou art the merchant for whom my son here," and he laid a hand on Horace's shrinking shoulder, "undertook to construct a mansion?"

"I am," said Mr. Wackerbath, in some mystification. "Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Ventimore, senior?"

"No, no," put in Horace; "no relation. He's a sort of informal partner."

"Hast thou not found him an architect of divine gifts?" inquired the Jinnee, beaming with pride. "Is not the palace that he hath raised for thee by his transcendent accomplishments a marvel of beauty and stateliness, and one that Sultans might envy?"

"No, sir!" shouted the infuriated Mr. Wackerbath; "since you ask my opinion, it's nothing of the sort! It's a ridiculous tom-fool cross between the palm-house at Kew and the Brighton Pavilion! There's no billiard-room, and not a decent bedroom in the house. I've been all over it, so I ought to know; and as for drainage, there isn't a sign of it. And he has the brass – ah, I should say, the unblushing effrontery – to call that a country house!"

Horace's dismay was curiously shot with relief. The Jinnee, who was certainly very far from being a genius except by courtesy, had taken it upon himself to erect the palace according to his own notions of Arabian domestic luxury – and Horace, taught by bitter experience, could sympathise to some extent with his unfortunate client. On the other hand, it was balm to his smarting self-respect to find that it was not his own plans, after all, which had been found so preposterous; and, by some obscure mental process, which I do not propose to explain, he became reconciled, and almost grateful, to the officious Fakrash. And then, too, he was his Jinnee, and Horace had no intention of letting him be bullied by an outsider.

"Let me explain, Mr. Wackerbath," he said. "Personally I've had nothing to do with this. This gentleman, wishing to spare me the trouble, has taken upon himself to build your house for you, without consulting either of us, and, from what I know of his powers in the direction, I've no doubt that – that it's a devilish fine place, in its way. Anyhow, we make no charge for it – he presents it to you as a free gift. Why not accept it as such and make the best of it?"

"Make the best of it?" stormed Mr. Wackerbath. "Stand by and see the best site in three counties defaced by a jimcrack Moorish nightmare like that! Why, they'll call it 'Wackerbath's Folly,' sir. I shall be the laughing-stock of the neighbourhood. I can't live in the beastly building. I couldn't afford to keep it up, and I won't have it cumbering my land. Do you hear? I won't! I'll go to law, cost me what it may, and compel you and your Arabian friends there to pull the thing down. I'll take the case up to the House of Lords, if necessary, and fight you as long as I can stand!"

"As long as thou canst stand!" repeated Fakrash, gently. "That is a long time truly, O thou litigious one!.. On all fours, ungrateful dog that thou art!" he cried, with an abrupt and entire change of manner, "and crawl henceforth for the remainder of thy days. I, Fakrash-el-Aamash, command thee!"

It was both painful and grotesque to see the portly and intensely respectable Mr. Wackerbath suddenly drop forward on his hands while desperately striving to preserve his dignity. "How dare you, sir?" he almost barked, "how dare you, I say? Are you aware that I could summon you for this? Let me up. I insist upon getting up!"

"O contemptible in aspect!" replied the Jinnee, throwing open the door. "Begone to thy kennel."

"I won't! I can't!" whimpered the unhappy man. "How do you expect me – me! – to cross Westminster Bridge on all fours? What will the officials think at Waterloo, where I have been known and respected for years? How am I to face my family in – in this position? Do, for mercy's sake, let me get up!"

Horace had been too shocked and startled to speak before, but now humanity, coupled with disgust for the Jinnee's high-handed methods, compelled him to interfere. "Mr. Fakrash," he said, "this has gone far enough. Unless you stop tormenting this unfortunate gentleman, I've done with you."

"Never," said Fakrash. "He hath dared to abuse my palace, which is far too sumptuous a dwelling for such a son of a burnt dog as he. Therefore, I will make his abode to be in the dust for ever."

"But I don't find fault," yelped poor Mr. Wackerbath. "You – you entirely misunderstood the – the few comments I ventured to make. It's a capital mansion, handsome, and yet 'homey,' too. I'll never say another word against it. I'll – yes, I'll live in it – if only you'll let me up?"

"Do as he asks you," said Horace to the Jinnee, "or I swear I'll never speak to you again."

"Thou art the arbiter of this matter," was the reply. "And if I yield, it is at thy intercession, and not his. Rise then," he said to the humiliated client; "depart, and show us the breadth of thy shoulders."

It was this precise moment which Beevor, who was probably unable to restrain his curiosity any longer, chose to re-enter the room. "Oh, Ventimore," he began, "did I leave my – ?.. I beg your pardon. I thought you were alone again."

"Don't go, sir," said Mr. Wackerbath, as he scrambled awkwardly to his feet, his usually florid face mottled in grey and lilac. "I – I should like you to know that, after talking things quietly over with your friend Mr. Ventimore and his partner here, I am thoroughly convinced that my objections were quite untenable. I retract all I said. The house is – ah – admirably planned: most convenient, roomy, and – ah – unconventional. The – the entire freedom from all sanitary appliances is a particular recommendation. In short, I am more than satisfied. Pray forget anything I may have said which might be taken to imply the contrary… Gentlemen, good afternoon!"

He bowed himself past the Jinnee in a state of deference and apprehension, and was heard stumbling down the staircase. Horace hardly dared to meet Beevor's eyes, which were fixed upon the green-turbaned Jinnee, as he stood apart in dreamy abstraction, smiling placidly to himself.

"I say," Beevor said to Horace, at last, in an undertone, "you never told me you had gone into partnership."

"He's not a regular partner," whispered Ventimore; "he does odd things for me occasionally, that's all."

"He soon managed to smooth your client down," remarked Beevor.

"Yes," said Horace; "he's an Oriental, you see, and, he has a – a very persuasive manner. Would you like to be introduced?"

"If it's all the same to you," replied Beevor, still below his voice, "I'd rather be excused. To tell you the truth, old fellow, I don't altogether fancy the looks of him, and it's my opinion," he added, "that the less you have to do with him the better. He strikes me as a wrong'un, old man."

"No, no," said Horace; "eccentric, that's all – you don't understand him."

"Receive news!" began the Jinnee, after Beevor, with suspicion and disapproval evident even on his back and shoulders, had retreated to his own room, "Suleyman, the son of Daood, sleeps with his fathers."

"I know," retorted Horace, whose nerves were unequal to much reference to Solomon just then. "So does Queen Anne."

"I have not heard of her. But art thou not astounded, then, by my tidings?"

"I have matters nearer home to think about," said Horace, dryly. "I must say, Mr. Fakrash, you have landed me in a pretty mess!"

"Explain thyself more fully, for I comprehend thee not."

"Why on earth," Horace groaned, "couldn't you let me build that house my own way?"

"Did I not hear thee with my own ears lament thy inability to perform the task? Thereupon, I determined that no disgrace should fall upon thee by reason of such incompetence, since I myself would erect a palace so splendid that it should cause thy name to live for ever. And, behold, it is done."

"It is," said Horace. "And so am I. I don't want to reproach you. I quite feel that you have acted with the best intentions; but, oh, hang it all! can't you see that you've absolutely wrecked my career as an architect?"

"That is a thing that cannot be," returned the Jinnee, "seeing that thou hast all the credit."

"The credit! This is England, not Arabia. What credit can I gain from being supposed to be the architect of an Oriental pavilion, which might be all very well for Haroun-al-Raschid, but I can assure you is preposterous as a home for an average Briton?"