"If he wants me he'd be quite equal to coming on to the club after me," he reflected, "for he has about as much sense of the fitness of things as Mary's lamb. I shouldn't care about seeing him suddenly bursting through the floor of the smoking-room. Nor would the committee." He sat up late, in the hope that Fakrash would appear; but the Jinnee made no sign, and Horace began to get uneasy. "I wish there was some way of ringing him up," he thought. "If he were only the slave of a ring or a lamp, I'd rub it; but it wouldn't be any use to rub that bottle--and, besides, he isn't a slave. Probably he has a suspicion that he has not exactly distinguished himself over his latest feat, and thinks it prudent to keep out of my way for the present. But if he fancies he'll make things any better for himself by that he'll find himself mistaken." It was maddening to think of the unhappy Professor still fretting away hour after hour in the uncongenial form of a mule, waiting impatiently for the relief that never came. If it lingered much longer, he might actually starve, unless his family thought of getting in some oats for him, and he could be prevailed upon to touch them. And how much longer could they succeed in concealing the nature of his affliction? How long before all Kensington, and the whole civilised world, would know that one of the leading Orientalists in Europe was restlessly prancing on four legs around his study in Cottesmore Gardens? Racked by speculations such as these, Ventimore lay awake till well into the small hours, when he dropped off into troubled dreams that, wild as they were, could not be more grotesquely fantastic than the realities to which they were the alternative. CHAPTER XIII A CHOICE OF EVILS Not even his morning tub could brace Ventimore's spirits to their usual cheerfulness. After sending away his breakfast almost untasted he stood at his window, looking drearily out over the crude green turf of Vincent Square at the indigo masses of the Abbey and the Victoria Tower and the huge gasometers to the right which loomed faintly through a dun-coloured haze. He felt a positive loathing for his office, to which he had gone with such high hopes and enthusiasm of late. There was no work for him to do there any longer, and the sight of his drawing-table and materials would, he knew, be intolerable in their mute mockery. Nor could he with any decency present himself again at Cottesmore Gardens while the situation still remained unchanged, as it must do until he had seen Fakrash. When would the Jinnee return, or--horrible suspicion!--did he never intend to return at all? "Fakrash!" he groaned aloud, "you _can't_ really mean to leave me in such a regular deuce of a hole as this?" "At thy service!" said a well-known voice behind him, and he turned to see the Jinnee standing smiling on the hearthrug--and at this accomplishment of his dearest desire all his indignation surged back.