Further blue smoke gushed out of the bottle and formed into arms making gestures that Abdullah was afraid he recognized. “No, no, stop, I implore you, O sapphire among spirits!” he said hastily. “Let the soldier alone, and consent, as a great favor, to grant me another wish a day in advance, that the animals might be fed.”

“Do you want to be a toad, too?” the genie inquired.

“If it is written in the prophecy that Flower-in-the-Night shall marry a toad, then make me a toad,” Abdullah said piously. “But first fetch milk and fish, great genie.”

The genie swirled moodily. “Bother the prophecy! I can’t go against that. All right. You can have your wish, provided you leave me in peace for the next two days.”

Abdullah sighed. It was a dreadful waste of a wish. “Very well.”

A crock of milk and an oval plate with a salmon on it plunked down on the rock by his feet. The genie gave Abdullah a look of huge dislike and sucked himself back inside the bottle.

“Great work!” said the soldier, and proceeded to make a large pother over poaching salmon in milk and making sure there were no bones the cat might choke on.

The cat, Abdullah noticed, had all this while been peacefully licking at her kitten in the hat. She did not seem to know the genie was there. But she knew about the salmon all right. As soon as it started cooking, she left her kitten and wound herself around the soldier, thin and urgent and mewing. “Soon, soon, my black darling!” the soldier said.

Abdullah could only suppose that the cat’s magic and the genie’s were so different that they were unable to perceive each other. The one good thing he could see about the situation was that there was plenty of salmon and milk for the two humans as well. While the cat daintily guzzled, and her kitten lapped, and sneezed, and did his amateur best to drink salmon-flavored milk, the soldier and Abdullah feasted on porridge made with milk and roast salmon steak.

After such a breakfast Abdullah felt kinder toward the whole world. He told himself that the genie could not have made a better choice of companion for him than this soldier. The genie was not so bad. And he would surely be seeing Flower-in-the-Night soon now. He was thinking that the Sultan and Kabul Aqba were not such bad fellows either when he discovered, to his outrage, that the soldier intended to take the cat and her kitten along with them to Kingsbury.

“But, most benevolent bombardier and considerate cuirassier,” he protested, “what will become of your scheme to earn your bounty? You cannot rob robbers with a kitten in your hat!”