"And do you know why?" demanded Aladdin. "Ignorance, I presume," said Bondifeller, "allied to a love of squalor." "Nothing of the sort!" retorted Aladdin, pounding the table with his fist. "It is because you spent all your appropriation on bath-tubs and never even thought of putting one penny into the construction of coal-bins." Bondifeller was silent. He had never thought of that before. "Well," he said, ruefully, "I suppose I must agree, but it will cost twenty millions of dollars." "What's twenty millions to a man who controls the United Mints of North America?" demanded Aladdin. "But if you keep me here I shall not control the United Mints of North America!" shouted Bondifeller, pounding the table just a little on his own account. "John W. Midas and Silas Reddymun have combined against me, and if I am not at the board meeting at ten o'clock this morning I am down and out." "Phew!" whistled Aladdin. "By Jove! Major, I'm glad you mentioned it in time. It gives me an opportunity to show you just what this power of mine amounts to." He rubbed the lamp and the genie appeared. "I desire the immediate presence here of Colonel John W. Midas and Mr. Silas Reddymun, Sambo," said Aladdin. "To hear is to obey," replied the slave, making off. "You don't mean to say--" gasped Bondifeller. "Major Bondifeller," said Aladdin, "I am not the saying kind. I am a plain, common garden doer. I admit that this time I am stretching things a point, but you'll find my orders are obeyed." As indeed they were, to the astonishment of all concerned, not even excepting Aladdin himself, who trembled at the audacity of his last command. Within forty minutes the two gasping financiers whose presence had been commanded sat before them. The genii had apparently taken them just as they found them, for Reddymun still wore his bath-robe and Midas was in his shirt-sleeves, with only one side of his face shaved. [Illustration: "WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?" THEY DEMANDED] "What the devil does this mean?" they demanded, in scarcely varying terms.