He slipped on some clothes hurriedly and re-entered the sitting-room. "Now, Mr. Fakrash," he said, "we'll have this out. You talk of having loaded me with benefits. You seem to consider I ought to be grateful to you. In Heaven's name, for what? I've been as forbearing as possible all this time, because I gave you credit for meaning well. Now, I'll speak plainly. I told you from the first, and I tell you now, that I want no riches nor honours from you. The one real good turn you did me was bringing me that client, and you spoilt that because you would insist on building the palace yourself, instead of leaving it to me! As for the rest--here am I, a ruined and discredited man, with a client who probably supposes I'm in league with the Devil; with the girl I love, and might have married, believing that I have left her to marry a Princess; and her father, unable ever to forgive me for having seen him as a one-eyed mule. In short, I'm in such a mess all round that I don't care two straws whether I live or die!" "What is all this to me?" said the Jinnee. "Only this--that unless you can see your way to putting things straight for me, I'm hanged if I take the trouble to seal you up in that bottle!" "How am _I_ to put things straight for thee?" cried Fakrash, peevishly. "If you could make all those people entirely forget that affair in the Guildhall, you can make my friends forget the brass bottle and everything connected with it, can't you?" "There would be no difficulty in that," Fakrash admitted. "Well, do it--and I'll swear to seal you up in the bottle exactly as if you had never been out of it, and pitch you into the deepest part of the Thames, where no one will ever disturb you." "First produce the bottle, then," said Fakrash, "for I cannot believe but that thou hast some lurking guile in thy heart." "I'll ring for my landlady and have the bottle brought up," said Horace. "Perhaps that will satisfy you? Stay, you'd better not let her see you." "I will render myself invisible," said the Jinnee, suiting the action to his words. "But beware lest thou play me false," his voice continued, "for I shall hear thee!" "So you've come in, Mr. Ventimore?" said Mrs. Rapkin, as she entered. "And without the furrin gentleman? I _was_ surprised, and so was Rapkin the same, to see you ridin' off this morning in the gorgious chariot and 'osses, and dressed up that lovely! 'Depend upon it,' I says to Rapkin, I says, 'depend upon it, Mr. Ventimore'll be sent for to Buckinham Pallis, if it ain't Windsor Castle!'" "Never mind that now," said Horace, impatiently; "I want that brass bottle I bought the other day. Bring it up at once, please." "I thought you said the other day you never wanted to set eyes on it again, and I was to do as I pleased with it, sir?" "Well, I've changed my mind, so let me have it, quick."