"No welcome to thee!" he cried. "Dilatory dog that thou art! Hadst thou
delayed another minute, I would have called down some calamity upon
thee."

"Well, you need not trouble yourself to do that now," returned
Ventimore. "Here's your bottle, and you can creep into it as soon as you
please."

"But the seal!" shrieked the Jinnee. "What hast thou done with the seal
which was upon the bottle?"

"Why, you've got it yourself, of course," said Horace, "in one of your
pockets."

"O thou of base antecedents!" howled Fakrash, shaking out his flowing
draperies. "How should _I_ have the seal? This is but a fresh device of
thine to undo me!"

"Don't talk rubbish!" retorted Horace. "You made the Professor give it
up to you yesterday. You must have lost it somewhere or other. Never
mind! I'll get a large cork or bung, which will do just as well. And
I've lots of sealing-wax."

"I will have no seal but the seal of Suleyman!" declared the Jinnee.
"For with no other will there be security. Verily I believe that that
accursed sage, thy friend, hath contrived by some cunning to get the
seal once more into his hands. I will go at once to his abode and compel
him to restore it."

"I wouldn't," said Horace, feeling extremely uneasy, for it was
evidently a much simpler thing to let a Jinnee out of a bottle than to
get him in again. "He's quite incapable of taking it. And if you go out
now you'll only make a fuss and attract the attention of the Press,
which I thought you rather wanted to avoid."

"I shall attire myself in the garments of a mortal--even those I assumed
on a former occasion," said Fakrash, and as he spoke his outer robes
modernised into a frock-coat. "Thus shall I escape attention."

"Wait one moment," said Horace. "What is that bulge in your
breast-pocket?"

"Of a truth," said the Jinnee, looking relieved but not a little foolish
as he extracted the object, "it is indeed the seal."

"You're in such a hurry to think the worst of everybody, you see!" said
Horace. "Now, _do_ try to carry away with you into your seclusion a
better opinion of human nature."

"Perdition to all the people of this age!" cried Fakrash, re-assuming
his green robe and turban, "for I now put no faith in human beings and
would afflict them all, were not the Lord Mayor (on whom be peace!)
mightier than I. Therefore, while it is yet time, take thou the stopper,
and swear that, after I am in this bottle, thou wilt seal it as before
and ca