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So saying, Beevor retired to his own room, and shut the door with the same irreproachable discretion, which conveyed that he was not in the least surprised, but was too much of a gentleman to show it. "Well, Mr. Wackerbath," began Horace, when they were alone, "so you're disappointed with the house?" "Disappointed!" said Mr. Wackerbath, furiously. "I am disgusted, sir, disgusted!"
Samuel Wackerbath by name," said the Professor; "one of the chief partners in the firm of Akers and Coverdale, the great estate agents a most influential man, if you can only succeed in satisfying him." "Oh, I don't feel any misgivings about that, sir," said Horace.
Wackerbath; "there will be outbuildings, lodges, cottages, and so forth, and then some of the rooms I should want specially decorated. Altogether, before we are finished, it may work out at about a hundred thousand. I take it that, with such a margin, you could ah run me up something that in a modest way would take the shine out of I mean to say eclipse anything in the adjoining counties?"
Wackerbath suddenly drop forward on his hands while desperately striving to preserve his dignity. "How dare you, sir?" he almost barked, "how dare you, I say? Are you aware that I could summon you for this? Let me up. I insist upon getting up!" "O contemptible in aspect!" replied the Jinnee, throwing open the door. "Begone to thy kennel." "I won't! I can't!" whimpered the unhappy man.
It was a generous and spirited action but, particularly now that the original designs had been found faulty and rejected, it placed the unfortunate architect in a most invidious position. "Well, sir," said Mr. Wackerbath, with elaborate irony, "I presume it is you whom I have to thank for improving my land by erecting this precious palace on it?"
"Perhaps you will explain?" "Explain!" Mr. Wackerbath gasped; "why no, if I speak just now, I shall be ill: you tell him," he added, waving a plump hand in Beevor's direction.
I've been sticking hard at it for over a fortnight." "Well, you might have given me a chance of seeing what you've made of it. I let you see all my work!" "To tell you the honest truth, old fellow, I wasn't at all sure you'd like it, and I was afraid you'd put me out of conceit with what I'd done, and Wackerbath was in a frantic hurry to have the plans so there it was."
He sent me old Wackerbath. By the way, I wonder if he's seen my designs yet, and what he thinks of them." He was at his table, engaged in jotting down some rough ideas for the decoration of the reception-rooms in the projected house, when Beevor came in.
He's a sort of informal partner." "Hast thou not found him an architect of divine gifts?" inquired the Jinnee, beaming with pride. "Is not the palace that he hath raised for thee by his transcendent accomplishments a marvel of beauty and stateliness, and one that Sultans might envy?" "No, sir!" shouted the infuriated Mr. Wackerbath; "since you ask my opinion, it's nothing of the sort!
It was this precise moment which Beevor, who was probably unable to restrain his curiosity any longer, chose to re-enter the room. "Oh, Ventimore," he began, "did I leave my ?... I beg your pardon. I thought you were alone again." "Don't go, sir," said Mr. Wackerbath, as he scrambled awkwardly to his feet, his usually florid face mottled in grey and lilac.
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