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.

"Oh, _there_ you are!" he said irritably. "Where on earth have you been
all this time?"

"Nowhere on earth," was the bland reply; "but in the regions of the air,
seeking to promote thy welfare."

"If you have been as brilliantly successful up there as you have down
here," retorted Horace, "I have much to thank you for."

"I am more than repaid," answered the Jinnee, who, like many highly
estimable persons, was almost impervious to irony, "by such assurances
of thy gratitude."

"I'm _not_ grateful," said Horace, fuming. "I'm devilish annoyed!"

"Well hath it been written," replied the Jinnee:--

"'Be disregardful of thine affairs, and commit them to the course
of Fate,
For often a thing that enrages thee may eventually be to thee
pleasing.'"

"I don't see the remotest chance of that, in my case," said Horace.

"Why is thy countenance thus troubled, and what new complaint hast thou
against me?"

"What the devil do you mean by turning a distinguished and perfectly
inoffensive scholar into a wall-eyed mule?" Horace broke out. "If that
is your idea of a practical joke----!"

"It is one of the easiest affairs possible," said the Jinnee,
complacently running his fingers through the thin strands of h