Page:Weird Tales volume 32 number 05.djvu/49

Rh say with absolute certainty that the Jinn did not once live upon this earth, that they could not have been practically ageless, that there is no living Jinni imprisoned in that jug there at this very moment?'

"He was silent, still staring moodily at that charred spot on the floor, and for a moment I thought that he had finished, but then he added softly, 'Of course, there's the probability that the Jinn were of extra-terrestrial origin. There were never many of them, and the Arabs—God knows how—pretty well put the Indian sign on what few there were. Perhaps, if I let that fellow out of his bottle, he'd light out for home so fast he'd make Barney Oldfield look as though he were driving backward.'

"That afternoon's conversation ended just about there. I got up, told him that he was loony, and suggested, with considerable acerbity, 'If you're so damned curious about what's in that jug of yours, why don't you send it to a laboratory and have it opened?'

Oh, no,' he said. 'I don't want it opened. I'm afraid of what might happen if whatever's in that jug got out. Besides, if anybody opens it, I'm going to open it myself. A good hot fire'd soften up that plug. See?—it began to run a little bit this afternoon'

"I snorted. 'My advice to you is: either have that thing opened by an expert, or take it out in the lot and bury it and forget about it. In any case, don't try to open it yourself. You might blow yourself up. I'm going back now. Come over for dinner tonight, eh? At seven.'

"His voice followed me out the door. The thing wouldn't explode, Bowen. The Jinn don't explode; they just grow'

"I put both hands over my ears and fled up the road.

for dinner at precisely seven o'clock; he'd timed it so perfectly that I was suspicious he'd waited down the road with watch in hand, counting off the seconds. The reason for his meticulous punctuality was immediately clear; he was drunker than any human being I've ever seen still off all fours. He was so drunk that he didn't even think about his precious jug until around ten o'clock—just as he was about to go home.

"I put him in the woodbox by the fireplace,' he told me abruptly—he was wandering around my living-room looking for his hat, which he hadn't worn at all—'and is he mad!'

"I knew right away what he was talking about. 'Mad?' I asked.

Mad.' Fothergill nodded. 'I can tell when he's mad; I can feel the mad boiling all over the room. He's mad because he thought he was going to get a chance to roll his jug around until it fell off some place and broke, maybe. He can't roll it around much, or even tip it over, in the woodbox, though; there's not enough room. Boy, he's sizzling! I guess I woke him up good this afternoon, all right. He's been jiggling his jug ever since. Don't ever tell me again that he's not alive, Bowen. I know!'

"A little later, after I'd managed to persuade him that he really hadn't worn his hat at all, I walked him home.

"During the next three weeks I don't think he drew a sober breath. I saw him every day, sometimes two or three times a day; he kept coming over to my house at unpredictable hours, and we had dinner together every night—how he ever managed to prepare the meals