will be smiling--pray don't prance like that, I
mean what I say--smiling over what now seems to you, very justly, a most
annoying and serious catastrophe. I shall speak seriously to Fakrash
(the Jinnee, you know), and I am sure that, as soon as he realises what
a frightful blunder he has made, he will be the first to offer you every
reparation in his power. For, old foozle as he is, he's thoroughly
good-hearted."

The Professor drooped his ears at this, and shook his head with a
doleful incredulity that made him look more like the Pantomime Donkey
than ever.

"I think I understand him fairly well by this time, sir," said Horace,
"and I'll answer for it that there's no real harm in him. I give you my
word of honour that, if you'll only remain quiet and leave everything to
me, you shall very soon be released from this absurd position. That's
all I came to tell you, and now I won't trouble you any longer. If you
_could_ bring yourself, as a sign that you bear me no ill-feeling, to
give me your--your off-foreleg at parting, I----"

But the Professor turned his back in so pointed and ominous a manner
that Horace judged it better to withdraw without insisting further. "I'm
afraid," he said to Mrs. Futvoye, after they had rejoined Sylvia in the
drawing-room--"I'm afraid your husband is still a little sore with me
about this miserable business."

"I don't know what else you can expect," replied the lady, rather
tartly; "he can't help feeling--as we all must and do, after what you
said just now--that, but for you, this would never have happened!"

"If you mean it was all through my attending that sale," said Horace,
"you might remember that I only went there at the Professor's request.
You know that, Sylvia."

"Yes, Horace," said Sylvia; "but papa never asked you to buy a hideous
brass bottle with a nasty Genius in it. And any one with ordinary common
sense would have kept it properly corked!"

"What, you against me too, Sylvia!" cried Horace, cut to the quick.

"No, Horace, never against you. I didn't mean to say what I did. Only it
_is_ such a relief to put the blame on somebody. I know, I _know_ you
feel it almost as much as we do. But so long as poor, dear papa remains
as he is, we can never be anything to one another. You must see that,
Horace!"

"Yes, I see that," he said; "but trust me, Sylvia, he shall _not_ remain
as he is. I swear he shall not. In another day or two, at the outside,
you will see him his own