Page:Weird Tales volume 42 number 04.djvu/33

 The music was suddenly marvelous.

"—over a floor like satin, in a gorgeous room, hung with brilliantly-lighted crystal chandeliers!"

The glare was blinding. Connie roused from her dream.

"Look!" I said needlessly.

For a minute she seemed nonplussed as she saw her vision of beauty had come true. And then she smiled, and said aloud, "Dear me, I keep forgetting! Thank you, djinn."

"For you, Connie, anything!" the djinn said.

Connie looked hungrily, feasting her beauty-starved eyes, before turning to me. "'Every prospect pleases, and only man is vile,"' she quoted prettily.

"Do you have to look at me when you say that?" I asked peevishly.

Connie dimpled. "It's just that the room is so beautiful now I can't help wishing that you combined the charm of Charles Boyer, the physique of Victor Mature, and the looks of Tyrone Power, just to go with it."

Before either of us knew what was happening, every woman in the place was swarming all over me, running their fingers through my hair, smearing my face with lip-sticky kisses, and so forth and so on. I'm not complaining, mind! It wasn't really disagreeable, just startling. The din was terrific but loud above the cries of the maddened women came Connie's voice almost instantly, clarion-clear: "So help me, I wish I'd kept my big mouth shut before I ever wished a wish as silly as that one!"

I might have known it was too good to last. Before you could say Jack Robinson, I was back in the old body, battered but still serviceable, and no woman in the room was giving me even a second glance.

Connie was fanning herself. She looked quite distraught. "Good heavens, what a sight!" she murmured. "I'll have to watch what I wish for, after this."

The djinn was grinning.

"You might have given me five minutes more, Connie, before calling it off," I said, and to save myself I couldn't keep a querulous note from creeping into my voice.

"I like you better as you are, dear. No one would ever call you The Jersey Lily, perhaps—"

"Thank you," I said, somewhat stiffly.

"—but still, you have your points."

"Thank you again," I said, unbending a little. I leaned forward to kiss her then, but Connie turned her head aside, embarrassed.

"Not now, Pete!" she protested. "You know I don't like love-making in front of others."

"No one's looking," I said.

She pointed upward at the djinn. "Don't forget him."

I looked up. He was chuckling and rumbling to himself, enjoying himself hugely. "You have only to wish that I'll go away," he reminded us silkily.

"I will not!" Connie said.

"Now here's a pretty kettle of fish!" I said, beside myself. "Connie, if you love me—"

"I am not getting rid of the djinn!" Connie said flatly. "Why I haven't even begun to wish for anything really good yet. And I won't be rushed. After all, I'm young, with my whole life before me. I want to get used to the idea first. And, in the meantime, I'm having fun, just wishing for inconsequential things."

"But think of what you'll be missing!" I cried unthinkingly.

"Why, you conceited thing, you!" Connie said.

"It really is edifying," broke in the djinn at this point, "to meet a woman like Connie. Not a bit greedy. Not a bit mercenary. None of this wishing for money or jewels or furs or cars or sordid stuff like that."

I regarded him with a jaundiced eye. There were times when the djinn's stuffy smugness would have been well-nigh intolerable. But he wasn't fooling me. I knew he was just rubbing it in, laughing up his sleeve at me. He was being suavely obnoxious, skillfully doing his best to goad me into action. For he knew as well as I did that Connie would never release him of her own accord. If the djinn were to be dismissed, I'd have to do it somehow. I didn't know how, but I'd find a way.

I glanced again at the djinn and I think