The Brass Bottle, F. Anstey [e book reader for pc TXT] 📗

and the only course left him was to put as good a face as he could on the matter, and trust to luck to pull him through without discovery or disaster.

[Pg 85]

CHAPTER IX "PERSICOS ODI, PUER, APPARATUS"

"So you've found your way here at last?" said Horace, as he shook hands heartily with the Professor and Mrs. Futvoye. "I can't tell you how delighted I am to see you."

As a matter of fact, he was very far from being at ease, which made him rather over-effusive, but he was determined that, if he could help it, he would not betray the slightest consciousness of anything bizarre or unusual in his domestic arrangements.

"And these," said Mrs. Futvoye, who was extremely stately in black, with old lace and steel embroidery—"these are the bachelor lodgings you were so modest about! Really," she added, with a humorous twinkle in her shrewd eyes, "you young men seem to understand how to make yourselves comfortable—don't they, Anthony?"

"They do, indeed," said the Professor, dryly, though it manifestly cost him some effort to conceal his appreciation. "To produce such results as these must, if I mistake not, have entailed infinite research—and considerable expense."

"No," said Horace, "no. You—you'd be surprised if you knew how little."

"I should have imagined," retorted the Professor, "that any outlay on apartments which I presume you do not contemplate occupying for an extended period must be money thrown away. But, doubtless, you know best."

"But your rooms are quite wonderful, Horace!" cried Sylvia, her charming eyes dilating with admiration. "And where, where did you get that magnificent[Pg 86] dressing-gown? I never saw anything so lovely in my life!"

She herself was lovely enough in a billowy, shimmering frock of a delicate apple-green hue, her only ornament a deep-blue Egyptian scarab with spread wings, which was suspended from her neck by a slender gold chain.

"I—I ought to apologise for receiving you in this costume," said Horace, with embarrassment; "but the fact is, I couldn't find my evening clothes anywhere, so—so I put on the first things that came to hand."

"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?"

[Pg 87]

"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[Pg 88] 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[Pg 89] 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[Pg 90] 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 [Pg 91]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[Pg 92] 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