"No welcome to thee!" he cried. "Dilatory dog that thou art! Hadst thou delayed another minute, I would have called down some calamity upon thee." "Well, you need not trouble yourself to do that now," returned Ventimore. "Here's your bottle, and you can creep into it as soon as you please." "But the seal!" shrieked the Jinnee. "What hast thou done with the seal which was upon the bottle?" "Why, you've got it yourself, of course," said Horace, "in one of your pockets." "O thou of base antecedents!" howled Fakrash, shaking out his flowing draperies. "How should _I_ have the seal? This is but a fresh device of thine to undo me!" "Don't talk rubbish!" retorted Horace. "You made the Professor give it up to you yesterday. You must have lost it somewhere or other. Never mind! I'll get a large cork or bung, which will do just as well. And I've lots of sealing-wax." "I will have no seal but the seal of Suleyman!" declared the Jinnee. "For with no other will there be security. Verily I believe that that accursed sage, thy friend, hath contrived by some cunning to get the seal once more into his hands. I will go at once to his abode and compel him to restore it." "I wouldn't," said Horace, feeling extremely uneasy, for it was evidently a much simpler thing to let a Jinnee out of a bottle than to get him in again. "He's quite incapable of taking it. And if you go out now you'll only make a fuss and attract the attention of the Press, which I thought you rather wanted to avoid." "I shall attire myself in the garments of a mortal--even those I assumed on a former occasion," said Fakrash, and as he spoke his outer robes modernised into a frock-coat. "Thus shall I escape attention." "Wait one moment," said Horace. "What is that bulge in your breast-pocket?" "Of a truth," said the Jinnee, looking relieved but not a little foolish as he extracted the object, "it is indeed the seal." "You're in such a hurry to think the worst of everybody, you see!" said Horace. "Now, _do_ try to carry away with you into your seclusion a better opinion of human nature." "Perdition to all the people of this age!" cried Fakrash, re-assuming his green robe and turban, "for I now put no faith in human beings and would afflict them all, were not the Lord Mayor (on whom be peace!) mightier than I. Therefore, while it is yet time, take thou the stopper, and swear that, after I am in this bottle, thou wilt seal it as before and cast it into deep waters, where no eye will look upon it more!" "With all the pleasure in the world!" said Horace; "only you must keep _your_ part of the bargain first. You will kindly obliterate all recollection of yourself and the brass bottle from the minds of every human being who has had anything to do with you or it." "Not so," objected the Jinnee, "for thus wouldst thou forget thy compact." "Oh, very well, leave _me_ out, then," said Horace. "Not that anything could make me forget _you_!"