“No, he did not.  In point of fact, he disliked her very much indeed, and viewed the approaching wedding with extreme disfavour.”

“And yet you say that nobody had an interest in doing Carboys some sort of mischief in order to prevent that wedding from being consummated, Mr. Narkom,” said Cleek with a shrug of the shoulders.  “Certainly, Van Nant would have been glad to see a spoke put in that particular wheel; though I freely confess I do not see what good could come of preventing it by doing away with Carboys, as he would then be in as bad a position as if the marriage had been allowed to proceed as planned.  Either way he loses Carboys’ companionship and assistance; and his one wish would be to preserve both.  Well, go on.  What next?  I’m anxious to hear about the belt.  Where and how does that come in?”

“Well, it appears that Miss Morrison got hold of a humorous book called ‘The Brass Bottle,’ a fantastic, farcical thing, about a genie who had been sealed up in a bottle for a thousand years getting out and causing the poor devil of a hero no end of worry by heaping riches and honours upon him in the most embarrassing manner.  It happened that on the night Miss Morrison got this book, and read it aloud for the amusement of her father and lover, Carboys had persuaded Van Nant to spend the evening with them.  Apparently he enjoyed himself, too, for he laughed as boisterously as any of them over the farcical tale, and would not go home until he had heard the end of it.  When it was finished Miss Morrison tells me, Carboys, after laughing fit to split his sides over the predicament of the hero of the book, cried out:  ’By George!  I wish some old genie would take it into his head to hunt me up, and try the same sort of a dodge with me.  He wouldn’t find this chicken shying his gold and his gems back at his head, I can tell you.  I’d accept all the Arab slaves and all the palaces he wanted to thrust on me; and then I’d make ’em all over to you, Mary dear, so you’d never have to do another day’s worrying or pinching in all your life.  But never you nor anybody else depend upon an Arab’s gratitude or an Arab’s generosity.  He’ll promise you the moon, and then wriggle out of giving you so much as a star—­just as Abdul ben Meerza did with me.’  And upon Miss Morrison asking what he meant by that, he replied, laughingly:  ’Ask Van, he knew the old codger better than I—­knew his whole blessed family, blow him!—­and was able to talk to the old skinflint in his own outlandish tongue.’

“Upon Miss Morrison’s acting on this suggestion, Van Nant told of an adventure Carboys had had in Persia some years previously.  It appears that he saved the life of a miserly old Arab called Abdul ben Meerza at the risk of his own; that the old man was profuse in his expressions of gratitude, and, on their parting, had said:  ’By the Prophet, thou shalt yet find the tree of this day’s planting bear rich fruit for thee and thy feet walk upon golden stones.’  But, in spite of this promise, he had walked away, and Carboys had never heard another word from nor of him from that hour until three nights ago.”