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

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[Pg 114] 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.

[Pg 115]

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 [Pg 116]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?"

[Pg 117]

"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.

[Pg 118]

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?"

[Pg 119]

"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!"

[Pg 120]

"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[Pg 121] 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