E-text prepared by David Clarke, Martin Pettit, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) THE BRASS BOTTLE by F. ANSTEY First Published, October, 1900 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. HORACE VENTIMORE RECEIVES A COMMISSION 1 II. A CHEAP LOT 12 III. AN UNEXPECTED OPENING 18 IV. AT LARGE 31 V. CARTE BLANCHE 36 VI. EMBARRAS DE RICHESSES 51 VII. "GRATITUDE--A LIVELY SENSE OF FAVOURS TO COME" 62 VIII. BACHELOR'S QUARTERS 75 IX. "PERSICOS ODI, PUER, APPARATUS" 85 X. NO PLACE LIKE HOME! 107 XI. A FOOL'S PARADISE 115 XII. THE MESSENGER OF HOPE 132 XIII. A CHOICE OF EVILS 143 XIV. "SINCE THERE'S NO HELP, COME, LET US KISS AND PART!" 158 XV. BLUSHING HONOURS 174 XVI. A KILLING FROST 182 XVII. HIGH WORDS 193 XVIII. A GAME OF BLUFF 204 THE EPILOGUE 222 THE BRASS BOTTLE CHAPTER I HORACE VENTIMORE RECEIVES A COMMISSION "This day six weeks--just six weeks ago!" Horace Ventimore said, half aloud, to himself, and pulled out his watch. "Half-past twelve--what was I doing at half-past twelve?" As he sat at the window of his office in Great Cloister Street, Westminster, he made his thoughts travel back to a certain glorious morning in August which now seemed so remote and irrecoverable. At this precise time he was waiting on the balcony of the Hotel de la Plage--the sole hostelry of St. Luc-en-Port, the tiny Normandy watering-place upon which, by some happy inspiration, he had lighted during a solitary cycling tour--waiting until She should appear. He could see the whole scene: the tiny cove, with the violet shadow of the cliff sleeping on the green water; the swell of the waves lazily lapping against the diving-board from which he had plunged half an hour before; he remembered the long swim out to the buoy; the exhilarated anticipation with which he had dressed and climbed the steep path to the hotel terrace.