genie-in-a-bottle

Updated: June 1, 2025

The ice-cream pants of a bygone day; the pointed, shriveled yellow Oxfords! the silk-front shirt; the odd cuff link or stud they were like a genie-in-a-bottle, these poor clothes! You rubbed them and a whole Arabian Night's dream unfurled from them. And Nat lived it all!

- The Best Short Stories of 1917: and the Yearbook of the American Short Story