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."

"Well," said Horace, "if it had been a bachelor party, there would have
been no harm in the houri; but, as it happened, two of my guests were
ladies, and they--well, they not unnaturally put a wrong construction on
it all."

"Verily," exclaimed the Jinnee, "thy words are totally incomprehensible
to me."

"I don't know what the custom may be in Arabia,"