Page:Weird Tales volume 42 number 04.djvu/31

 Scotch, by Gad! Good Scotch, too.

"How is it?" asked the djinn professionally, with the air of a man beginning to take a little pride in his work.

"Delectable, delectable!" I muttered absently, my mind spinning like a waltzing mouse. I looked at Connie with awe. "You know, life could be beautiful, dear. I wish—"

"Don't go running a good thing into the ground," Connie warned maliciously.

My heart sank. She had not yet really forgiven me for my ill-chosen remarks about women. She was merely demonstrating her powers tantalizingly in a way to make them stick in my memory. To think that I thought then that the situation was grave! Had I but known, as they say in the mystery novels!

For worse was yet to come.

T BEGAN at once with the flashing speed of an attack from a coiled rattlesnake. I was not forewarned. The thing was upon me before I knew it.

"Well," Connie said, rising, "I suppose I'd better go in and dress. It's getting late."

The djinn rose too, and hovered over her. This brought me up with a jerk.

"Where do you think you're going?" I asked him.

"Until I'm released, I have to hover at Connie's beck and call, don't I?" he whined.

"You don't have to hover at her beck and call while she's changing her clothes, oaf!"

"Did I make the rules?" he asked me.

Connie giggled.

"Now, listen!" I said, dropping my glass as I scrambled hastily to my feet. "Now hold on here a minute! Connie! Have you taken leave of your senses?"

"Why, no." Connie paused, eyes demurely cast down, appearing to give this some thought. "I believe I'm in my right mind."

"You are like h— you are not in your right mind if you think for one minute that I propose to allow you to change your clothes in front of this—this—!"

"I can't spend the rest of my life in a Bikini bathing suit, either, can I?" Connie asked reasonably.

For the first time since I'd met him, the djinn looked completely happy. "You know," he said, "there must be tougher ways than this of earning a living, at that. I take it all back."

The effrontery of the man! The effrontery of both of them, come to think of it!

"By Jupiter!" I cried. "This is insupportable! And on our honeymoon, too! Constance Bartlett, I positively forbid you—"

"Now, wait a minute," the djinn interrupted me smoothly. "There's no real need for all this heat and passion, this deplorable running off at the mouth. Really, I marvel at you, Pete! You, too, Connie! Where is the famous Bartlett logic, the Bartlett quick wit?"

"You mean?"

"I mean there's a very easy, simple, quick way out of this difficulty," the djinn said slyly. "Pshaw! I'm disappointed in both of you! Think!"

Connie looked wary, but I said recklessly, "Name it!"

"All Mrs. B. has to do," the djinn said, spreading his hands expressively, "is wish for me to go away from here promptly."

I would have leaped unwittingly at the suggestion, but Connie forestalled me.

"Oh-ho, no you don't!" she cried. "Was I born yesterday? Don't think you can teach your grandmother how to suck eggs, djinn! I should tell you to go away before I've even wished a single profitable wish! Get lost with that idea, chump!"

The djinn lapsed into sullen impotence. I groaned aloud in my frustration. We seemed to have reached an impasse.

IV

UT like many difficult problems, once attacked, the solution itself was so simple that it would have occurred to a Mongolian idiot.

"I'm getting hungry," Connie said plaintively. "We can't hang around here all day. This discussion must end right now. I'm going up to the cottage and change my clothes, and I dare anybody to try to stop me!"

And this time she didn't wait for further argument. She trudged through the sand as swiftly as may be, the djinn hovering