Page:Weird Tales volume 42 number 04.djvu/28

 time, and it must be recorded that even in his depression his eyes visibly brightened. I'm afraid any masculine eyes would brighten at the vision of Connie tastefully garbed in a brief blue-and-white polka-dotted Bikini bathing suit. Indeed, I've had trouble with this angle before.

"Well, wed, well!" said the djinn, shaking his head in seeming despond, though it was plain to be seen that he was not really distressed. "What'll they be taking off next?"

This was a rhetorcialrhetorical [sic] question, purely, I gathered. But as it seemed to be addressed more or less in my direction, I thought it would do no great harm to straighten him out immediately on a few salient facts.

"This little lady happens to be my wife, repeat wife," I said.

"Oh!" For a minute the disappointment seemed almost more than the djinn could bear. But he must have been a philosopher of sorts for after a minute he said, though somewhat obscurely, "Ah well. That's life for you."

I settled back into my former state of uneasy calm, my suspicions not entirely allayed. This was one hombre, I warned myself, who would probably bear watching.

ONNIE noted my scowl, and proceeded to pour oil on troubled waters.

"The djinn was only being complimentary," she said. "No need for you to be jealous all the time, Petey-weetie-sweelie."

"If there's one thing I can't abide," I said fretfully, my nerves quivering like the fringe on a bubble-dancer's G-string, "it's being called Petey-weetie- sweetie in front of strangers."

"Oh, come, now!" the djinn protested, looking somewhat hurt. "Don't look upon me as a stranger, I implore you! Until I grant your wife's wish, which automatically releases me, I'm practically one of the family."

"Not this family," I said sullenly.

Connie said, not displeased with all this, "Now, boys. Let's leave this silly argument lie for a moment, while we consider the main question."

"What main question? " I asked.

"The wish, stupid, the wish!"

"Business, always business," the djinn said, gloomy once more. "Well let's get on with it then. The sooner I grant your wish, the faster I can take a powder. What can I do for you? Seeing it's you, it'll be a pleasure almost, despite my griping."

And he looked almost amiable, even indulgent.

Connie thanked him, but she was not to be hurried. She likes to talk over all sides of a question before acting, Connie does. In fact, she likes to talk, period. She sat there in the sand now, her hands absently caressing the satiny skin of her knees, the while a dreamy look came into her large turquoise eyes. And I knew that when she did speak at last, whatever it was she would say would be the end-product of no little musing and considered thought. And Connie has a talent for the bizarre.

The djinn felt this, too, I am sure. I confess to a feeling of no little apprehension as we both waited on the well known tenterhooks.

"You know," Connie began at last conversationally, "I've often read stories about people who'd released djinns from bottles, and it really does seem to me that they're incredibly stupid. The releasers, I mean, not the stories or the djinns or the bottles. For consider! What do the releasers do? Do they consider even the minimum of intelligence in selecting their wish for the djinn to grant? They do not!" She answered herself, before we could open our mouths. "They wish for some silly thing like a million dollars, or something like that."

"A million dollars is silly?" I croaked. "Well, now, here's news!"

Even the djinn looked somewhat taken aback. "I can think of sillier things," he said defensively.

"Well, perhaps a million dollars isn't so very silly," Connie hedged.

"You're tootin', baby," I said. "For a minute there I thought you'd gone crazy in a big way."

"But the point I'm trying to make is this," Connie went on, patient with my levity. "These people just wish for something sil—something like that, and they neglect to wish