“The djinns,” he concluded, “have some bad qualities, but their main trouble was that they could be anything they wanted, so they never learned how to make anything. I came back to get designs and pictures of all sorts of stuff. Not only statues and fashions and architecture—though I want those—but industrial products, and”—he paused—“the machines that make them. After all, a djinn can turn himself into a drill press as well as a beetle or a whirlwind, once he knows what a drill press is like. As a drill press he can turn out all sorts of stuff—including another drill press. And that manner of working would be congenial to them, too. They’ll like being pieces of machinery and turning out things the humans can’t make and are delighted to buy from them. Barkut ought to become a rather thriving industrial community before long.”
Mr. Emurian simply stared, batting his eyes slowly from time to time.
“I’d like to have your friend set up a branch of his business in Barkut,” said Tony earnestly. “And—well—I’d like a great deal to get an agent here in the United States, forwarding samples of new products, technical magazines, and above all pictures of everything under the sun. You could get them to Ispahan to be brought into Barkut by whatever route your friend discovers—if you’d take the agency. Could I interest you?”
Mr. Emurian said: “Yes. Indeed you interest me. Oh, indeed yes!”
“You work out the details,” said Tony. “I’m staying at the Waldorf with my wife. I brought back quite a sum in gold, and can arrange for you to draw on it. You make your plans and get your friend to arrange to get in touch with me when he finds a way to Barkut. I’ll have him watched for there, and he can locate me easily enough!”
“Indeed he can!” said Ghail proudly. “My husband is His Most Illustrious Majesty, the Great in Single Combat, the Destroyer of Evil, the Protector of the Poor, the Nobly Forgiving and Compassionate, the King of Djinns and Men, Tony Gregg.”
“Yes,” said Tony abstractedly, “he can find me.”
Mr. Emurian turned over the two golden coins Tony had put on the table. And suddenly his fingers trembled a little. On one side was an inscription in conventionalized Arabic script. It said that the coin was a ten-dirhim piece of Barkut. The other side showed a rather elaborate throne. But it was not empty. It was occupied by two people. One—the girl—was in some native dress of considerable grandeur, and Mr. Emurian looked twice at her. The dark-eyed, proudly smiling girl beside Tony in the shishkebab restaurant had plainly been the model for that figure. But he looked three times, and four, and five, at the male figure on the coin. That half of the design was a young man in a soft hat and a belted-in-the-back topcoat, with undoubtedly highly polished brown shoes. It was, in fact, Tony Gregg.
“I—will be most happy to be your American agent,” said Mr. Emurian. “Er—Your Majesty!”