The Brass Bottle Part 12

"I don't 'appen to know where they've put nothink. Your dress clothes?

Why, I dunno where they've bin and put our little parler where me and Maria 'ave set of a hevenin' all these years regular. I dunno where they've put the pantry, nor yet the bath-room, with 'ot and cold water laid on at my own expense. And you arsk me to find your hevenin' soot! I consider, sir, I consider that a unwall--that a most unwarrant-terrible liberty have bin took at my expense."

"My good man, don't talk rubbis.h.!.+" said Horace.

"I'm talking to you about what _I know_, and I a.s.sert that an Englishman's 'ome is his cashle, and n.o.body's got the right when his backsh turned to go and make a 'Ummums of it. Not _n.o.body_ 'asn't!"

"Make a _what_ of it?" cried Ventimore.

"A 'Ummums--that's English, ain't it? A bloomin' Turkish baths! Who do you suppose is goin' to take apartments furnished in this 'ere ridic'loush style? What am I goin' to say to my landlord? It'll about ruing me, this will; and after you bein' a lodger 'ere for five year and more, and regarded by me and Maria in the light of one of the family.

It's 'ard--it's d.a.m.ned 'ard!"

"Now, look here," said Ventimore, sharply--for it was obvious that Mr.

Rapkin's studies had been lightened by copious refreshment--"pull yourself together, man, and listen to me."

"I respeckfully decline to pull myshelf togerrer f'r anybody livin',"

said Mr. Rapkin, with a n.o.ble air. "I shtan' 'ere upon my dignity as a man, sir. I shay, I shtand 'ere upon----" Here he waved his hand, and sat down suddenly upon the marble floor.

"You can stand on anything you like--or can," said Horace; "but hear what I've got to say. The--the people who made all these alterations went beyond my instructions. I never wanted the house interfered with like this. Still, if your landlord doesn't see that its value is immensely improved, he's a fool, that's all. Anyway, I'll take care _you_ shan't suffer. If I have to put everything back in its former state, I will, at my own expense. So don't bother any more about _that_."

"You're a gen'l'man, Mr. Ventimore," said Rapkin, cautiously regaining his feet. "There's no mishtaking a gen'l'man. _I'm_ a gen'l'man."

"Of course you are," said Horace genially, "and I'll tell you how you're going to show it. You're going straight downstairs to get your good wife to pour some cold water over your head; and then you will finish dressing, see what you can do to get a table of some sort and lay it for dinner, and be ready to announce my friends when they arrive, and wait afterwards. Do you see?"

"That will be all ri', Mr. Ventimore," said Rapkin, who was not far gone enough to be beyond understanding or obeying. "You leave it entirely to me. I'll unnertake that your friends shall be made comforrable, perfelly comforrable. I've lived as butler in the besht, the mosht ecxlu--most arishto--you know the sort o' fam'lies I'm tryin' to r'member--and--and everything was always all ri', and _I_ shall be all ri' in a few minutes."

With this a.s.surance he stumbled downstairs, leaving Horace relieved to some extent. Rapkin would be sober enough after his head had been under the tap for a few minutes, and in any case there would be the hired waiter to rely upon.

If he could only find out where his evening clothes were! He returned to his room and made another frantic search--but they were nowhere to be found; and as he could not bring himself to receive his guests in his ordinary morning costume--which the Professor would probably construe as a deliberate slight, and which would certainly seem a solecism in Mrs.

Futvoye's eyes, if not in her daughter's--he decided to put on the Eastern robes, with the exception of a turban, which he could not manage to wind round his head.

Thus arrayed he re-entered the domed hall, where he was annoyed to find that no attempt had been made as yet to prepare a dinner-table, and he was just looking forlornly round for a bell when Rapkin appeared. He had apparently followed Horace's advice, for his hair looked wet and sleek, and he was comparatively sober.

"This is too bad!" cried Horace; "my friends may be here at any moment now--and nothing done. You don't propose to wait at table like that, do you?" he added, as he noted the man's overcoat and the comforter round his throat.

"I do not propose to wait in any garments whatsoever," said Rapkin; "I'm a-goin' out, I am."

"Very well," said Horace; "then send the waiter up--I suppose he's come?"

"He come--but he went away again--I told him as he wouldn't be required."

"You told him that!" Horace said angrily, and then controlled himself.

"Come, Rapkin, be reasonable. You can't really mean to leave your wife to cook the dinner, and serve it too!"

"She ain't intending to do neither; she've left the house already."

"You must fetch her back," cried Horace. "Good heavens, man, _can't_ you see what a fix you're leaving me in? My friends have started long ago--it's too late to wire to them, or make any other arrangements."

There was a knock, as he spoke, at the front door; and odd enough was the familiar sound of the cast-iron knocker in that Arabian hall.

"There they are!" he said, and the idea of meeting them at the door and proposing an instant adjournment to a restaurant occurred to him--till he suddenly recollected that he would have to change and try to find some money, even for that. "For the last time, Rapkin," he cried in despair, "do you mean to tell me there's no dinner ready?"

"Oh," said Rapkin, "there's dinner right enough, and a lot o' barbarious furriners downstairs a cookin' of it--that's what broke Maria's 'art--to see it all took out of her 'ands, after the trouble she'd gone to."

"But I must have somebody to wait," exclaimed Horace.

"You've got waiters enough, as far as that goes. But if you expect a hordinary Christian man to wait along of a lot o' narsty n.i.g.g.e.rs, and be at their beck and call, you're mistook, sir, for I'm going to sleep the night at my brother-in-law's and take his advice, he bein' a doorkeeper at a solicitor's orfice and knowing the law, about this 'ere business, and so I wish you a good hevening, and 'oping your dinner will be to your liking and satisfaction."

He went out by the farther archway, while from the entrance-hall Horace could hear voices he knew only too well. The Futvoyes had come; well, at all events, it seemed that there would be something for them to eat, since Fakrash, in his anxiety to do the thing thoroughly, had furnished both the feast and attendance himself--but who was there to announce the guests? Where were these waiters Rapkin had spoken of? Ought he to go and bring in his visitors himself?

These questions answered themselves the next instant, for, as he stood there under the dome, the curtains of the central arch were drawn with a rattle, and disclosed a double line of tall slaves in rich raiment, their onyx eyes rolling and their teeth flas.h.i.+ng in their chocolate-hued countenances, as they salaamed.

Between this double line stood Professor and Mrs. Futvoye and Sylvia, who had just removed their wraps and were gazing in undisguised astonishment on the splendours which met their view.

Horace advanced to receive them; he felt he was in for it now, and the only course left him was to put as good a face as he could on the matter, and trust to luck to pull him through without discovery or disaster.

CHAPTER IX

"PERSICOS ODI, PUER, APPARATUS"

"So you've found your way here at last?" said Horace, as he shook hands heartily with the Professor and Mrs. Futvoye. "I can't tell you how delighted I am to see you."

As a matter of fact, he was very far from being at ease, which made him rather over-effusive, but he was determined that, if he could help it, he would not betray the slightest consciousness of anything _bizarre_ or unusual in his domestic arrangements.

"And these," said Mrs. Futvoye, who was extremely stately in black, with old lace and steel embroidery--"these are the bachelor lodgings you were so modest about! Really," she added, with a humorous twinkle in her shrewd eyes, "you young men seem to understand how to make yourselves comfortable--don't they, Anthony?"

"They do, indeed," said the Professor, dryly, though it manifestly cost him some effort to conceal his appreciation. "To produce such results as these must, if I mistake not, have entailed infinite research--and considerable expense."

"No," said Horace, "no. You--you'd be surprised if you knew how little."

"I should have imagined," retorted the Professor, "that _any_ outlay on apartments which I presume you do not contemplate occupying for an extended period must be money thrown away. But, doubtless, you know best."

"But your rooms are quite wonderful, Horace!" cried Sylvia, her charming eyes dilating with admiration. "And where, _where_ did you get that magnificent dressing-gown? I never saw anything so lovely in my life!"

She herself was lovely enough in a billowy, s.h.i.+mmering frock of a delicate apple-green hue, her only ornament a deep-blue Egyptian scarab with spread wings, which was suspended from her neck by a slender gold chain.

"I--I ought to apologise for receiving you in this costume," said Horace, with embarra.s.sment; "but the fact is, I couldn't find my evening clothes anywhere, so--so I put on the first things that came to hand."

"It is hardly necessary," said the Professor, conscious of being correctly clad, and unconscious that his s.h.i.+rt-front was bulging and his long-eared white tie beginning to work up towards his left jaw--"hardly necessary to offer any apology for the simplicity of your costume--which is entirely in keeping with the--ah--strictly Oriental character of your interior."

"_I_ feel dreadfully out of keeping!" said Sylvia, "for there's nothing in the least Oriental about _me_--unless it's my scarab--and he's I don't know how many centuries behind the time, poor dear!"

"If you said 'thousands of years,' my dear," corrected the Professor, "you would be more accurate. That scarab was taken out of a tomb of the thirteenth dynasty."

"Well, I'm sure he'd rather be where he is," said Sylvia, and Ventimore entirely agreed with her. "Horace, I _must_ look at everything. How clever and original of you to transform an ordinary London house into this!"