Aladdin gasped, as well he might. Here was old Rufus Bondifeller, reputed to be the richest man in the world, a guest in his mother's fast-failing little remnant of a tailor shop.
"Gud-glad to mum-meet you, sir," stammered Aladdin. "Do you think there's enough eggs here to satisfy your hunger? There appears to be two hundred and fifty dollars' worth here now, but if you wish the rest served immediately—"
"Great heavens, no!" roared Bondifeller. "When I said I'd give five hundred dollars for a boiled egg I was merely speaking figuratively. A rich man can't eat any more boiled eggs at a sitting than a poor man; fact is, half the time he can't eat as many without a bad attack of angina pectoris."
"All right," said Aladdin, resolved to carry off the extraordinary situation with an outward nonchalance, in spite of the inner turmoil that kept his brain whirling. "You needn't bother about the rest of those eggs now, Sambo. Major Bondifeller can get along on these."
The blackamoor and his companions disappeared even as they had come, apparently irrespective of doorways, and utterly regardless of walls. They seemed merely to melt through whatever solid substances there might be between themselves and annihilation. As for Major Bondifeller, as he observed these strange developments, his face grew set and rigid. He eyed every movement of the blackamoors with uneasy attention until they had vanished from sight, and then his flashing eye was riveted upon Aladdin. Finally he spoke, sharply and to the point.
"Well," he snapped, "how much?"
Aladdin started. The icy tone of the speaker's voice chilled him, and it was so peremptory that he felt for the moment as if he had been stung by the lash.
"How much what?" he said, finally, summoning up all his courage to face the apparently angry millionaire.
"Don't try to evade the point," retorted the Major, coldly. "Let's get through with the business as quickly as we can. It is plain as a pikestaff to anybody having half an eye that, taking advantage of our mishap, you have lured my daughter and myself in here for your own profit. No man keeps such a villainous-looking gang of niggers on hand with an honest purpose. So what are your demands?"
Aladdin laughed in spite of his disturbed frame of mind at the Major's suspicions. It was such an absurd idea that he could be at the head of a badger-gang, and yet, after all, he could not deny a certain sort of reasonableness in the notion from Major Bondifeller's point of view. Again taking the lamp casually in his hand, more as an outlet for his embarrassment than for any other reason, he gave it a second rub and started to answer the Major's question, but, as before, the mist again appeared, and from its musty depths the blackamoor took shape and salaamed before him.