"Phew!" whistled Aladdin. "By Jove! Major, I'm glad you mentioned it in time. It gives me an opportunity to show you just what this power of mine amounts to."
He rubbed the lamp and the genie appeared.
"I desire the immediate presence here of Colonel John W. Midas and Mr. Silas Reddymun, Sambo," said Aladdin.
"To hear is to obey," replied the slave, making off.
"You don't mean to say—" gasped Bondifeller.
"Major Bondifeller," said Aladdin, "I am not the saying kind. I am a plain, common garden doer. I admit that this time I am stretching things a point, but you'll find my orders are obeyed."
As indeed they were, to the astonishment of all concerned, not even excepting Aladdin himself, who trembled at the audacity of his last command. Within forty minutes the two gasping financiers whose presence had been commanded sat before them. The genii had apparently taken them just as they found them, for Reddymun still wore his bath-robe and Midas was in his shirt-sleeves, with only one side of his face shaved.
