He owed all this to Fakrash. Yes, that incorrigibly grateful Jinnee, with his antiquated notions and his high-flown professions, had contrived to ruin him more disastrously than if he had been his bitterest foe! Ah! if he could be face to face with him once more--if only for five minutes--he would be restrained by no false delicacy: he would tell him fairly and plainly what a meddling, blundering old fool he was. But Fakrash had taken his flight for ever: there were no means of calling him back--nothing to be done now but go to bed and sleep--if he could! Exasperated by the sense of his utter helplessness, Ventimore went to the arch which led to his bed-chamber and drew the curtain back with a furious pull. And just within the archway, standing erect with folded arms and the smile of fatuous benignity which Ventimore was beginning to know and dread, was the form of Fakrash-el-Aamash, the Jinnee! CHAPTER X NO PLACE LIKE HOME! "May thy head long survive!" said Fakrash, by way of salutation, as he stepped through the archway. "You're very good," said Horace, whose anger had almost evaporated in the relief of the Jinnee's unexpected return, "but I don't think any head can survive this sort of thing long." "Art thou content with this dwelling I have provided for thee?" inquired the Jinnee, glancing around the stately hall with perceptible complacency. It would have been positively brutal to say how very far from contented he felt, so Horace could only mumble that he had never been lodged like that before in all his life. "It is far below thy deserts," Fakrash observed graciously. "And were thy friends amazed at the manner of their entertainment?" "They were," said Horace. "A sure method of preserving friends is to feast them with liberality," remarked the Jinnee. This was rather more than Horace's temper could stand. "You were kind enough to provide my friends with such a feast," he said, "that they'll never come _here_ again." "How so? Were not the meats choice and abounding in fatness? Was not the wine sweet, and the sherbet like unto perfumed snow?" "Oh, everything was--er--as nice as possible," said Horace. "Couldn't have been better." "Yet thou sayest that thy friends will return no more--for what reason?" "Well, you see," explained Horace, reluctantly, "there's such a thing as doing people _too_ well. I mean, it isn't everybody that appreciates Arabian cooking. But they might have stood that. It was the dancing-girl that did for me." "I commanded that a houri, lovelier than the full moon, and graceful as a young gazelle, should appear for the delight of thy guests." "She came," said Horace, gloomily. "Acquaint me with that which hath occurred--for I perceive plainly that something hath fallen out contrary to thy desires."