"No, no, my dear boy," said the Professor, soothingly, "not mad--nothing of the sort; perhaps your mental equilibrium is just a trifle--it's quite intelligible. You see, the sudden turn in your professional prospects, coupled with your engagement to Sylvia--I've known stronger minds than yours thrown off their balance--temporarily, of course, quite temporarily--by less than that." "You believe I am suffering from delusions?" "I don't say that. I think you may see ordinary things in a distorted light." "Anyhow, you don't believe there really was a Jinnee inside that bottle?" "Remember, you yourself assured me at the time you opened it that you found nothing whatever inside it. Isn't it more credible that you were right then than that you should be right now?" "Well," said Horace, "you saw all those black slaves; you ate, or tried to eat, that unutterably beastly banquet; you heard that music--and then there was the dancing-girl. And this hall we're in, this robe I've got on--are _they_ delusions? Because if they are, I'm afraid you will have to admit that _you're_ mad too." "Ingeniously put," said the Professor. "I fear it is unwise to argue with you. Still, I will venture to assert that a strong imagination like yours, over-heated and saturated with Oriental ideas--to which I fear I may have contributed--is not incapable of unconsciously assisting in its own deception. In other words, I think that you may have provided all this yourself from various quarters without any clear recollection of the fact." "That's very scientific and satisfactory as far as it goes, my dear Professor," said Horace; "but there's one piece of evidence which may upset your theory--and that's this brass bottle." "If your reasoning powers were in their normal condition," said the Professor, compassionately, "you would see that the mere production of an empty bottle can be no proof of what it contained--or, for that matter, that it ever contained anything at all!" "Oh, I see _that_," said Horace; "but _this_ bottle has a stopper with what you yourself admit to be an inscription of some sort. Suppose that inscription confirms my story--what then? All I ask you to do is to make it out for yourself before you decide that I'm either a liar or a lunatic." "I warn you," said the Professor, "that if you are trusting to my being unable to decipher the inscription, you are deceiving yourself. You represent that this bottle belongs to the period of Solomon--that is, about a thousand years B.C. Probably you are not aware that the earliest specimens of Oriental metal-work in existence are not older than the tenth century of our era. But, granting that it is as old as you allege, I shall certainly be able to read any inscription there may be on it. I have made out clay tablets in Cuneiform which were certainly written a thousand years before Solomon's time."