"Well, you see," explained Horace, reluctantly, "there's such a thing as doing people too well. I mean, it isn't everybody that appreciates Arabian cooking. But they might have stood that. It was the dancing-girl that did for me."
"I commanded that a houri, lovelier than the full moon, and graceful as a young gazelle, should appear for the delight of thy guests."
"She came," said Horace, gloomily.
"Acquaint me with that which hath occurred—for I perceive plainly that something hath fallen out contrary to thy desires."
"Well," said Horace, "if it had been a bachelor party, there would have been no harm in the houri; but, as it happened, two of my guests were ladies, and they—well, they not unnaturally put a wrong construction on it all."
"Verily," exclaimed the Jinnee, "thy words are totally incomprehensible to me."
"I don't know what the custom may be in Arabia," said Horace, "but with us it is not usual for a man to engage a houri to dance after dinner to amuse the lady he is proposing to marry. It's the kind of attention she'd be most unlikely to appreciate.
"Then was one of thy guests the damsel whom thou art seeking to marry?"
"She was," said Horace, "and the other two were her father and mother. From which you may imagine that it was not altogether agreeable for me when your gazelle threw herself at my feet and hugged my knees and declared that I was the light of her eyes. Of course, it all meant nothing—it's probably the conventional behaviour for a gazelle, and I'm not reflecting upon her in the least. But, in the circumstances, it was compromising."