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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Phoenix and the Carpet, by E. Nesbit
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Phoenix and the Carpet
+
+Author: E. Nesbit
+
+Posting Date: August 2, 2008 [EBook #836]
+Release Date: March, 1997
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHOENIX AND THE CARPET ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jo Churcher
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PHOENIX AND THE CARPET
+
+E. Nesbit
+
+
+
+     TO
+
+     My Dear Godson
+     HUBERT GRIFFITH
+     and his sister
+     MARGARET
+
+
+     TO HUBERT
+
+     Dear Hubert, if I ever found
+     A wishing-carpet lying round,
+     I'd stand upon it, and I'd say:
+     'Take me to Hubert, right away!'
+     And then we'd travel very far
+     To where the magic countries are
+     That you and I will never see,
+     And choose the loveliest gifts for you, from me.
+
+     But oh! alack! and well-a-day!
+     No wishing-carpets come my way.
+     I never found a Phoenix yet,
+     And Psammeads are so hard to get!
+     So I give you nothing fine--
+     Only this book your book and mine,
+     And hers, whose name by yours is set;
+     Your book, my book, the book of Margaret!
+
+     E. NESBIT
+     DYMCHURCH
+     September, 1904
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+     1 The Egg
+     2 The Topless Tower
+     3 The Queen Cook
+     4 Two Bazaars
+     5 The Temple
+     6 Doing Good
+     7 Mews from Persia
+     8 The Cats, the Cow, and the Burglar
+     9 The Burglar's Bride
+     10 The Hole in the Carpet
+     11 The Beginning of the End
+     12 The End of the End
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1. THE EGG
+
+
+It began with the day when it was almost the Fifth of November, and a
+doubt arose in some breast--Robert's, I fancy--as to the quality of the
+fireworks laid in for the Guy Fawkes celebration.
+
+'They were jolly cheap,' said whoever it was, and I think it was Robert,
+'and suppose they didn't go off on the night? Those Prosser kids would
+have something to snigger about then.'
+
+'The ones _I_ got are all right,' Jane said; 'I know they are, because
+the man at the shop said they were worth thribble the money--'
+
+'I'm sure thribble isn't grammar,' Anthea said.
+
+'Of course it isn't,' said Cyril; 'one word can't be grammar all by
+itself, so you needn't be so jolly clever.'
+
+Anthea was rummaging in the corner-drawers of her mind for a very
+disagreeable answer, when she remembered what a wet day it was, and how
+the boys had been disappointed of that ride to London and back on the
+top of the tram, which their mother had promised them as a reward for
+not having once forgotten, for six whole days, to wipe their boots on
+the mat when they came home from school.
+
+So Anthea only said, 'Don't be so jolly clever yourself, Squirrel. And
+the fireworks look all right, and you'll have the eightpence that your
+tram fares didn't cost to-day, to buy something more with. You ought to
+get a perfectly lovely Catharine wheel for eightpence.'
+
+'I daresay,' said Cyril, coldly; 'but it's not YOUR eightpence anyhow--'
+
+'But look here,' said Robert, 'really now, about the fireworks. We don't
+want to be disgraced before those kids next door. They think because
+they wear red plush on Sundays no one else is any good.'
+
+'I wouldn't wear plush if it was ever so--unless it was black to be
+beheaded in, if I was Mary Queen of Scots,' said Anthea, with scorn.
+
+Robert stuck steadily to his point. One great point about Robert is the
+steadiness with which he can stick.
+
+'I think we ought to test them,' he said.
+
+'You young duffer,' said Cyril, 'fireworks are like postage-stamps. You
+can only use them once.'
+
+'What do you suppose it means by "Carter's tested seeds" in the
+advertisement?'
+
+There was a blank silence. Then Cyril touched his forehead with his
+finger and shook his head.
+
+'A little wrong here,' he said. 'I was always afraid of that with poor
+Robert. All that cleverness, you know, and being top in algebra so
+often--it's bound to tell--'
+
+'Dry up,' said Robert, fiercely. 'Don't you see? You can't TEST seeds if
+you do them ALL. You just take a few here and there, and if those
+grow you can feel pretty sure the others will be--what do you call
+it?--Father told me--"up to sample". Don't you think we ought to sample
+the fire-works? Just shut our eyes and each draw one out, and then try
+them.'
+
+'But it's raining cats and dogs,' said Jane.
+
+'And Queen Anne is dead,' rejoined Robert. No one was in a very good
+temper. 'We needn't go out to do them; we can just move back the table,
+and let them off on the old tea-tray we play toboggans with. I don't
+know what YOU think, but _I_ think it's time we did something, and
+that would be really useful; because then we shouldn't just HOPE the
+fireworks would make those Prossers sit up--we should KNOW.'
+
+'It WOULD be something to do,' Cyril owned with languid approval.
+
+So the table was moved back. And then the hole in the carpet, that
+had been near the window till the carpet was turned round, showed most
+awfully. But Anthea stole out on tip-toe, and got the tray when cook
+wasn't looking, and brought it in and put it over the hole.
+
+Then all the fireworks were put on the table, and each of the four
+children shut its eyes very tight and put out its hand and grasped
+something. Robert took a cracker, Cyril and Anthea had Roman candles;
+but Jane's fat paw closed on the gem of the whole collection, the
+Jack-in-the-box that had cost two shillings, and one at least of the
+party--I will not say which, because it was sorry afterwards--declared
+that Jane had done it on purpose. Nobody was pleased. For the worst of
+it was that these four children, with a very proper dislike of anything
+even faintly bordering on the sneakish, had a law, unalterable as those
+of the Medes and Persians, that one had to stand by the results of a
+toss-up, or a drawing of lots, or any other appeal to chance, however
+much one might happen to dislike the way things were turning out.
+
+'I didn't mean to,' said Jane, near tears. 'I don't care, I'll draw
+another--'
+
+'You know jolly well you can't,' said Cyril, bitterly. 'It's settled.
+It's Medium and Persian. You've done it, and you'll have to stand by
+it--and us too, worse luck. Never mind. YOU'LL have your pocket-money
+before the Fifth. Anyway, we'll have the Jack-in-the-box LAST, and get
+the most out of it we can.'
+
+So the cracker and the Roman candles were lighted, and they were
+all that could be expected for the money; but when it came to the
+Jack-in-the-box it simply sat in the tray and laughed at them, as Cyril
+said. They tried to light it with paper and they tried to light it with
+matches; they tried to light it with Vesuvian fusees from the pocket
+of father's second-best overcoat that was hanging in the hall. And then
+Anthea slipped away to the cupboard under the stairs where the brooms
+and dustpans were kept, and the rosiny fire-lighters that smell so nice
+and like the woods where pine-trees grow, and the old newspapers and the
+bees-wax and turpentine, and the horrid an stiff dark rags that are used
+for cleaning brass and furniture, and the paraffin for the lamps. She
+came back with a little pot that had once cost sevenpence-halfpenny when
+it was full of red-currant jelly; but the jelly had been all eaten long
+ago, and now Anthea had filled the jar with paraffin. She came in, and
+she threw the paraffin over the tray just at the moment when Cyril was
+trying with the twenty-third match to light the Jack-in-the-box. The
+Jack-in-the-box did not catch fire any more than usual, but the paraffin
+acted quite differently, and in an instant a hot flash of flame leapt
+up and burnt off Cyril's eyelashes, and scorched the faces of all
+four before they could spring back. They backed, in four instantaneous
+bounds, as far as they could, which was to the wall, and the pillar of
+fire reached from floor to ceiling.
+
+'My hat,' said Cyril, with emotion, 'You've done it this time, Anthea.'
+
+The flame was spreading out under the ceiling like the rose of fire in
+Mr Rider Haggard's exciting story about Allan Quatermain. Robert and
+Cyril saw that no time was to be lost. They turned up the edges of the
+carpet, and kicked them over the tray. This cut off the column of fire,
+and it disappeared and there was nothing left but smoke and a dreadful
+smell of lamps that have been turned too low.
+
+All hands now rushed to the rescue, and the paraffin fire was only a
+bundle of trampled carpet, when suddenly a sharp crack beneath their
+feet made the amateur firemen start back. Another crack--the carpet
+moved as if it had had a cat wrapped in it; the Jack-in-the-box had at
+last allowed itself to be lighted, and it was going off with desperate
+violence inside the carpet.
+
+Robert, with the air of one doing the only possible thing, rushed to the
+window and opened it. Anthea screamed, Jane burst into tears, and
+Cyril turned the table wrong way up on top of the carpet heap. But the
+firework went on, banging and bursting and spluttering even underneath
+the table.
+
+Next moment mother rushed in, attracted by the howls of Anthea, and in a
+few moments the firework desisted and there was a dead silence, and
+the children stood looking at each other's black faces, and, out of the
+corners of their eyes, at mother's white one.
+
+The fact that the nursery carpet was ruined occasioned but little
+surprise, nor was any one really astonished that bed should prove the
+immediate end of the adventure. It has been said that all roads lead to
+Rome; this may be true, but at any rate, in early youth I am quite sure
+that many roads lead to BED, and stop there--or YOU do.
+
+The rest of the fireworks were confiscated, and mother was not pleased
+when father let them off himself in the back garden, though he said,
+'Well, how else can you get rid of them, my dear?'
+
+You see, father had forgotten that the children were in disgrace, and
+that their bedroom windows looked out on to the back garden. So that
+they all saw the fireworks most beautifully, and admired the skill with
+which father handled them.
+
+Next day all was forgotten and forgiven; only the nursery had to
+be deeply cleaned (like spring-cleaning), and the ceiling had to be
+whitewashed.
+
+And mother went out; and just at tea-time next day a man came with a
+rolled-up carpet, and father paid him, and mother said--
+
+'If the carpet isn't in good condition, you know, I shall expect you to
+change it.' And the man replied--
+
+'There ain't a thread gone in it nowhere, mum. It's a bargain, if ever
+there was one, and I'm more'n 'arf sorry I let it go at the price; but
+we can't resist the lydies, can we, sir?' and he winked at father and
+went away.
+
+Then the carpet was put down in the nursery, and sure enough there
+wasn't a hole in it anywhere.
+
+As the last fold was unrolled something hard and loud-sounding bumped
+out of it and trundled along the nursery floor. All the children
+scrambled for it, and Cyril got it. He took it to the gas. It was shaped
+like an egg, very yellow and shiny, half-transparent, and it had an odd
+sort of light in it that changed as you held it in different ways. It
+was as though it was an egg with a yolk of pale fire that just showed
+through the stone.
+
+'I MAY keep it, mayn't I, mother?' Cyril asked.
+
+And of course mother said no; they must take it back to the man who had
+brought the carpet, because she had only paid for a carpet, and not for
+a stone egg with a fiery yolk to it.
+
+So she told them where the shop was, and it was in the Kentish Town
+Road, not far from the hotel that is called the Bull and Gate. It was
+a poky little shop, and the man was arranging furniture outside on the
+pavement very cunningly, so that the more broken parts should show as
+little as possible. And directly he saw the children he knew them again,
+and he began at once, without giving them a chance to speak.
+
+'No you don't' he cried loudly; 'I ain't a-goin' to take back no
+carpets, so don't you make no bloomin' errer. A bargain's a bargain, and
+the carpet's puffik throughout.'
+
+'We don't want you to take it back,' said Cyril; 'but we found something
+in it.'
+
+'It must have got into it up at your place, then,' said the man, with
+indignant promptness, 'for there ain't nothing in nothing as I sell.
+It's all as clean as a whistle.'
+
+'I never said it wasn't CLEAN,' said Cyril, 'but--'
+
+'Oh, if it's MOTHS,' said the man, 'that's easy cured with borax. But I
+expect it was only an odd one. I tell you the carpet's good through and
+through. It hadn't got no moths when it left my 'ands--not so much as an
+hegg.'
+
+'But that's just it,' interrupted Jane; 'there WAS so much as an egg.'
+
+The man made a sort of rush at the children and stamped his foot.
+
+'Clear out, I say!' he shouted, 'or I'll call for the police. A nice
+thing for customers to 'ear you a-coming 'ere a-charging me with finding
+things in goods what I sells. 'Ere, be off, afore I sends you off with a
+flea in your ears. Hi! constable--'
+
+The children fled, and they think, and their father thinks, that they
+couldn't have done anything else. Mother has her own opinion.
+
+But father said they might keep the egg.
+
+'The man certainly didn't know the egg was there when he brought the
+carpet,' said he, 'any more than your mother did, and we've as much
+right to it as he had.'
+
+So the egg was put on the mantelpiece, where it quite brightened up the
+dingy nursery. The nursery was dingy, because it was a basement room,
+and its windows looked out on a stone area with a rockery made of
+clinkers facing the windows. Nothing grew in the rockery except London
+pride and snails.
+
+The room had been described in the house agent's list as a 'convenient
+breakfast-room in basement,' and in the daytime it was rather dark. This
+did not matter so much in the evenings when the gas was alight, but then
+it was in the evening that the blackbeetles got so sociable, and used to
+come out of the low cupboards on each side of the fireplace where their
+homes were, and try to make friends with the children. At least, I
+suppose that was what they wanted, but the children never would.
+
+On the Fifth of November father and mother went to the theatre, and
+the children were not happy, because the Prossers next door had lots of
+fireworks and they had none.
+
+They were not even allowed to have a bonfire in the garden.
+
+'No more playing with fire, thank you,' was father's answer, when they
+asked him.
+
+When the baby had been put to bed the children sat sadly round the fire
+in the nursery.
+
+'I'm beastly bored,' said Robert.
+
+'Let's talk about the Psammead,' said Anthea, who generally tried to
+give the conversation a cheerful turn.
+
+'What's the good of TALKING?' said Cyril. 'What I want is for something
+to happen. It's awfully stuffy for a chap not to be allowed out in the
+evenings. There's simply nothing to do when you've got through your
+homers.'
+
+Jane finished the last of her home-lessons and shut the book with a
+bang.
+
+'We've got the pleasure of memory,' said she. 'Just think of last
+holidays.'
+
+Last holidays, indeed, offered something to think of--for they had
+been spent in the country at a white house between a sand-pit and a
+gravel-pit, and things had happened. The children had found a Psammead,
+or sand-fairy, and it had let them have anything they wished for--just
+exactly anything, with no bother about its not being really for their
+good, or anything like that. And if you want to know what kind of things
+they wished for, and how their wishes turned out you can read it all in
+a book called Five Children and It (It was the Psammead). If you've not
+read it, perhaps I ought to tell you that the fifth child was the baby
+brother, who was called the Lamb, because the first thing he ever said
+was 'Baa!' and that the other children were not particularly handsome,
+nor were they extra clever, nor extraordinarily good. But they were not
+bad sorts on the whole; in fact, they were rather like you.
+
+'I don't want to think about the pleasures of memory,' said Cyril; 'I
+want some more things to happen.'
+
+'We're very much luckier than any one else, as it is,' said Jane. 'Why,
+no one else ever found a Psammead. We ought to be grateful.'
+
+'Why shouldn't we GO ON being, though?' Cyril asked--'lucky, I mean, not
+grateful. Why's it all got to stop?'
+
+'Perhaps something will happen,' said Anthea, comfortably. 'Do you know,
+sometimes I think we are the sort of people that things DO happen to.'
+
+'It's like that in history,' said Jane: 'some kings are full of
+interesting things, and others--nothing ever happens to them, except
+their being born and crowned and buried, and sometimes not that.'
+
+'I think Panther's right,' said Cyril: 'I think we are the sort of
+people things do happen to. I have a sort of feeling things would happen
+right enough if we could only give them a shove. It just wants something
+to start it. That's all.'
+
+'I wish they taught magic at school,' Jane sighed. 'I believe if we
+could do a little magic it might make something happen.'
+
+'I wonder how you begin?' Robert looked round the room, but he got no
+ideas from the faded green curtains, or the drab Venetian blinds, or
+the worn brown oil-cloth on the floor. Even the new carpet suggested
+nothing, though its pattern was a very wonderful one, and always seemed
+as though it were just going to make you think of something.
+
+'I could begin right enough,' said Anthea; 'I've read lots about it. But
+I believe it's wrong in the Bible.'
+
+'It's only wrong in the Bible because people wanted to hurt other
+people. I don't see how things can be wrong unless they hurt somebody,
+and we don't want to hurt anybody; and what's more, we jolly well
+couldn't if we tried. Let's get the Ingoldsby Legends. There's a thing
+about Abra-cadabra there,' said Cyril, yawning. 'We may as well play at
+magic. Let's be Knights Templars. They were awfully gone on magic. They
+used to work spells or something with a goat and a goose. Father says
+so.'
+
+'Well, that's all right,' said Robert, unkindly; 'you can play the goat
+right enough, and Jane knows how to be a goose.'
+
+'I'll get Ingoldsby,' said Anthea, hastily. 'You turn up the hearthrug.'
+
+So they traced strange figures on the linoleum, where the hearthrug had
+kept it clean. They traced them with chalk that Robert had nicked
+from the top of the mathematical master's desk at school. You know, of
+course, that it is stealing to take a new stick of chalk, but it is not
+wrong to take a broken piece, so long as you only take one. (I do not
+know the reason of this rule, nor who made it.) And they chanted all the
+gloomiest songs they could think of. And, of course, nothing happened.
+So then Anthea said, 'I'm sure a magic fire ought to be made of
+sweet-smelling wood, and have magic gums and essences and things in it.'
+
+'I don't know any sweet-smelling wood, except cedar,' said Robert; 'but
+I've got some ends of cedar-wood lead pencil.'
+
+So they burned the ends of lead pencil. And still nothing happened.
+
+'Let's burn some of the eucalyptus oil we have for our colds,' said
+Anthea.
+
+And they did. It certainly smelt very strong. And they burned lumps
+of camphor out of the big chest. It was very bright, and made a horrid
+black smoke, which looked very magical. But still nothing happened. Then
+they got some clean tea-cloths from the dresser drawer in the kitchen,
+and waved them over the magic chalk-tracings, and sang 'The Hymn of the
+Moravian Nuns at Bethlehem', which is very impressive. And still nothing
+happened. So they waved more and more wildly, and Robert's tea-cloth
+caught the golden egg and whisked it off the mantelpiece, and it fell
+into the fender and rolled under the grate.
+
+'Oh, crikey!' said more than one voice.
+
+And every one instantly fell down flat on its front to look under the
+grate, and there lay the egg, glowing in a nest of hot ashes.
+
+'It's not smashed, anyhow,' said Robert, and he put his hand under the
+grate and picked up the egg. But the egg was much hotter than any one
+would have believed it could possibly get in such a short time, and
+Robert had to drop it with a cry of 'Bother!' It fell on the top bar of
+the grate, and bounced right into the glowing red-hot heart of the fire.
+
+'The tongs!' cried Anthea. But, alas, no one could remember where they
+were. Every one had forgotten that the tongs had last been used to fish
+up the doll's teapot from the bottom of the water-butt, where the Lamb
+had dropped it. So the nursery tongs were resting between the water-butt
+and the dustbin, and cook refused to lend the kitchen ones.
+
+'Never mind,' said Robert, 'we'll get it out with the poker and the
+shovel.'
+
+'Oh, stop,' cried Anthea. 'Look at it! Look! look! look! I do believe
+something IS going to happen!'
+
+For the egg was now red-hot, and inside it something was moving. Next
+moment there was a soft cracking sound; the egg burst in two, and out of
+it came a flame-coloured bird. It rested a moment among the flames, and
+as it rested there the four children could see it growing bigger and
+bigger under their eyes.
+
+Every mouth was a-gape, every eye a-goggle.
+
+The bird rose in its nest of fire, stretched its wings, and flew out
+into the room. It flew round and round, and round again, and where it
+passed the air was warm. Then it perched on the fender. The children
+looked at each other. Then Cyril put out a hand towards the bird. It put
+its head on one side and looked up at him, as you may have seen a parrot
+do when it is just going to speak, so that the children were hardly
+astonished at all when it said, 'Be careful; I am not nearly cool yet.'
+
+They were not astonished, but they were very, very much interested.
+
+They looked at the bird, and it was certainly worth looking at. Its
+feathers were like gold. It was about as large as a bantam, only its
+beak was not at all bantam-shaped. 'I believe I know what it is,' said
+Robert. 'I've seen a picture.'
+
+He hurried away. A hasty dash and scramble among the papers on father's
+study table yielded, as the sum-books say, 'the desired result'. But
+when he came back into the room holding out a paper, and crying, 'I say,
+look here,' the others all said 'Hush!' and he hushed obediently and
+instantly, for the bird was speaking.
+
+'Which of you,' it was saying, 'put the egg into the fire?'
+
+'He did,' said three voices, and three fingers pointed at Robert.
+
+The bird bowed; at least it was more like that than anything else.
+
+'I am your grateful debtor,' it said with a high-bred air.
+
+The children were all choking with wonder and curiosity--all except
+Robert. He held the paper in his hand, and he KNEW. He said so. He
+said--
+
+'_I_ know who you are.'
+
+And he opened and displayed a printed paper, at the head of which was a
+little picture of a bird sitting in a nest of flames.
+
+'You are the Phoenix,' said Robert; and the bird was quite pleased.
+
+'My fame has lived then for two thousand years,' it said. 'Allow me to
+look at my portrait.' It looked at the page which Robert, kneeling down,
+spread out in the fender, and said--
+
+'It's not a flattering likeness... And what are these characters?' it
+asked, pointing to the printed part.
+
+'Oh, that's all dullish; it's not much about YOU, you know,' said Cyril,
+with unconscious politeness; 'but you're in lots of books.'
+
+'With portraits?' asked the Phoenix.
+
+'Well, no,' said Cyril; 'in fact, I don't think I ever saw any portrait
+of you but that one, but I can read you something about yourself, if you
+like.'
+
+The Phoenix nodded, and Cyril went off and fetched Volume X of the old
+Encyclopedia, and on page 246 he found the following:--
+
+'Phoenix--in ornithology, a fabulous bird of antiquity.'
+
+'Antiquity is quite correct,' said the Phoenix, 'but fabulous--well, do
+I look it?'
+
+Every one shook its head. Cyril went on--
+
+
+'The ancients speak of this bird as single, or the only one of its
+kind.'
+
+'That's right enough,' said the Phoenix.
+
+'They describe it as about the size of an eagle.'
+
+'Eagles are of different sizes,' said the Phoenix; 'it's not at all a
+good description.'
+
+All the children were kneeling on the hearthrug, to be as near the
+Phoenix as possible.
+
+'You'll boil your brains,' it said. 'Look out, I'm nearly cool now;' and
+with a whirr of golden wings it fluttered from the fender to the table.
+It was so nearly cool that there was only a very faint smell of burning
+when it had settled itself on the table-cloth.
+
+'It's only a very little scorched,' said the Phoenix, apologetically;
+'it will come out in the wash. Please go on reading.'
+
+The children gathered round the table.
+
+'The size of an eagle,' Cyril went on, 'its head finely crested with a
+beautiful plumage, its neck covered with feathers of a gold colour, and
+the rest of its body purple; only the tail white, and the eyes sparkling
+like stars. They say that it lives about five hundred years in the
+wilderness, and when advanced in age it builds itself a pile of sweet
+wood and aromatic gums, fires it with the wafting of its wings, and thus
+burns itself; and that from its ashes arises a worm, which in time grows
+up to be a Phoenix. Hence the Phoenicians gave--'
+
+'Never mind what they gave,' said the Phoenix, ruffling its golden
+feathers. 'They never gave much, anyway; they always were people who
+gave nothing for nothing. That book ought to be destroyed. It's
+most inaccurate. The rest of my body was never purple, and as for
+my--tail--well, I simply ask you, IS it white?'
+
+It turned round and gravely presented its golden tail to the children.
+
+'No, it's not,' said everybody.
+
+'No, and it never was,' said the Phoenix. 'And that about the worm
+is just a vulgar insult. The Phoenix has an egg, like all respectable
+birds. It makes a pile--that part's all right--and it lays its egg, and
+it burns itself; and it goes to sleep and wakes up in its egg, and comes
+out and goes on living again, and so on for ever and ever. I can't tell
+you how weary I got of it--such a restless existence; no repose.'
+
+'But how did your egg get HERE?' asked Anthea.
+
+'Ah, that's my life-secret,' said the Phoenix. 'I couldn't tell it to
+any one who wasn't really sympathetic. I've always been a misunderstood
+bird. You can tell that by what they say about the worm. I might tell
+YOU,' it went on, looking at Robert with eyes that were indeed starry.
+'You put me on the fire--' Robert looked uncomfortable.
+
+'The rest of us made the fire of sweet-scented woods and gums, though,'
+said Cyril.
+
+'And--and it was an accident my putting you on the fire,' said Robert,
+telling the truth with some difficulty, for he did not know how the
+Phoenix might take it. It took it in the most unexpected manner.
+
+'Your candid avowal,' it said, 'removes my last scruple. I will tell you
+my story.'
+
+'And you won't vanish, or anything sudden will you? asked Anthea,
+anxiously.
+
+'Why?' it asked, puffing out the golden feathers, 'do you wish me to
+stay here?'
+
+'Oh YES,' said every one, with unmistakable sincerity.
+
+'Why?' asked the Phoenix again, looking modestly at the table-cloth.
+
+'Because,' said every one at once, and then stopped short; only Jane
+added after a pause, 'you are the most beautiful person we've ever
+seen.' 'You are a sensible child,' said the Phoenix, 'and I will NOT
+vanish or anything sudden. And I will tell you my tale. I had resided,
+as your book says, for many thousand years in the wilderness, which is
+a large, quiet place with very little really good society, and I was
+becoming weary of the monotony of my existence. But I acquired the habit
+of laying my egg and burning myself every five hundred years--and you
+know how difficult it is to break yourself of a habit.'
+
+'Yes,' said Cyril; 'Jane used to bite her nails.'
+
+'But I broke myself of it,' urged Jane, rather hurt, 'You know I did.'
+
+'Not till they put bitter aloes on them,' said Cyril.
+
+'I doubt,' said the bird, gravely, 'whether even bitter aloes (the aloe,
+by the way, has a bad habit of its own, which it might well cure before
+seeking to cure others; I allude to its indolent practice of flowering
+but once a century), I doubt whether even bitter aloes could have cured
+ME. But I WAS cured. I awoke one morning from a feverish dream--it was
+getting near the time for me to lay that tiresome fire and lay that
+tedious egg upon it--and I saw two people, a man and a woman. They were
+sitting on a carpet--and when I accosted them civilly they narrated to
+me their life-story, which, as you have not yet heard it, I will now
+proceed to relate. They were a prince and princess, and the story of
+their parents was one which I am sure you will like to hear. In early
+youth the mother of the princess happened to hear the story of a certain
+enchanter, and in that story I am sure you will be interested. The
+enchanter--'
+
+'Oh, please don't,' said Anthea. 'I can't understand all these
+beginnings of stories, and you seem to be getting deeper and deeper in
+them every minute. Do tell us your OWN story. That's what we really want
+to hear.'
+
+'Well,' said the Phoenix, seeming on the whole rather flattered, 'to
+cut about seventy long stories short (though _I_ had to listen to them
+all--but to be sure in the wilderness there is plenty of time), this
+prince and princess were so fond of each other that they did not want
+any one else, and the enchanter--don't be alarmed, I won't go into
+his history--had given them a magic carpet (you've heard of a magic
+carpet?), and they had just sat on it and told it to take them right
+away from every one--and it had brought them to the wilderness. And as
+they meant to stay there they had no further use for the carpet, so they
+gave it to me. That was indeed the chance of a lifetime!'
+
+'I don't see what you wanted with a carpet,' said Jane, 'when you've got
+those lovely wings.'
+
+'They ARE nice wings, aren't they?' said the Phoenix, simpering and
+spreading them out. 'Well, I got the prince to lay out the carpet, and I
+laid my egg on it; then I said to the carpet, "Now, my excellent carpet,
+prove your worth. Take that egg somewhere where it can't be hatched for
+two thousand years, and where, when that time's up, some one will light
+a fire of sweet wood and aromatic gums, and put the egg in to hatch;"
+and you see it's all come out exactly as I said. The words were no
+sooner out of my beak than egg and carpet disappeared. The royal lovers
+assisted to arrange my pile, and soothed my last moments. I burnt myself
+up and knew no more till I awoke on yonder altar.'
+
+It pointed its claw at the grate.
+
+'But the carpet,' said Robert, 'the magic carpet that takes you anywhere
+you wish. What became of that?'
+
+'Oh, THAT?' said the Phoenix, carelessly--'I should say that that is the
+carpet. I remember the pattern perfectly.'
+
+It pointed as it spoke to the floor, where lay the carpet which mother
+had bought in the Kentish Town Road for twenty-two shillings and
+ninepence.
+
+At that instant father's latch-key was heard in the door.
+
+'OH,' whispered Cyril, 'now we shall catch it for not being in bed!'
+
+'Wish yourself there,' said the Phoenix, in a hurried whisper, 'and then
+wish the carpet back in its place.'
+
+No sooner said than done. It made one a little giddy, certainly, and a
+little breathless; but when things seemed right way up again, there the
+children were, in bed, and the lights were out.
+
+They heard the soft voice of the Phoenix through the darkness.
+
+'I shall sleep on the cornice above your curtains,' it said. 'Please
+don't mention me to your kinsfolk.'
+
+'Not much good,' said Robert, 'they'd never believe us. I say,' he
+called through the half-open door to the girls; 'talk about adventures
+and things happening. We ought to be able to get some fun out of a magic
+carpet AND a Phoenix.'
+
+'Rather,' said the girls, in bed.
+
+'Children,' said father, on the stairs, 'go to sleep at once. What do
+you mean by talking at this time of night?'
+
+No answer was expected to this question, but under the bedclothes Cyril
+murmured one.
+
+'Mean?' he said. 'Don't know what we mean. I don't know what anything
+means.'
+
+'But we've got a magic carpet AND a Phoenix,' said Robert.
+
+'You'll get something else if father comes in and catches you,' said
+Cyril. 'Shut up, I tell you.'
+
+Robert shut up. But he knew as well as you do that the adventures of
+that carpet and that Phoenix were only just beginning.
+
+Father and mother had not the least idea of what had happened in their
+absence. This is often the case, even when there are no magic carpets or
+Phoenixes in the house.
+
+The next morning--but I am sure you would rather wait till the next
+chapter before you hear about THAT.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2. THE TOPLESS TOWER
+
+
+The children had seen the Phoenix-egg hatched in the flames in their own
+nursery grate, and had heard from it how the carpet on their own nursery
+floor was really the wishing carpet, which would take them anywhere they
+chose. The carpet had transported them to bed just at the right
+moment, and the Phoenix had gone to roost on the cornice supporting the
+window-curtains of the boys' room.
+
+'Excuse me,' said a gentle voice, and a courteous beak opened, very
+kindly and delicately, the right eye of Cyril. 'I hear the slaves below
+preparing food. Awaken! A word of explanation and arrangement... I do
+wish you wouldn't--'
+
+The Phoenix stopped speaking and fluttered away crossly to the
+cornice-pole; for Cyril had hit out, as boys do when they are awakened
+suddenly, and the Phoenix was not used to boys, and his feelings, if not
+his wings, were hurt.
+
+'Sorry,' said Cyril, coming awake all in a minute. 'Do come back! What
+was it you were saying? Something about bacon and rations?'
+
+The Phoenix fluttered back to the brass rail at the foot of the bed.
+
+'I say--you ARE real,' said Cyril. 'How ripping! And the carpet?'
+
+'The carpet is as real as it ever was,' said the Phoenix, rather
+contemptuously; 'but, of course, a carpet's only a carpet, whereas a
+Phoenix is superlatively a Phoenix.'
+
+'Yes, indeed,' said Cyril, 'I see it is. Oh, what luck! Wake up, Bobs!
+There's jolly well something to wake up for today. And it's Saturday,
+too.'
+
+'I've been reflecting,' said the Phoenix, 'during the silent watches
+of the night, and I could not avoid the conclusion that you were quite
+insufficiently astonished at my appearance yesterday. The ancients were
+always VERY surprised. Did you, by chance, EXPECT my egg to hatch?'
+
+'Not us,' Cyril said.
+
+'And if we had,' said Anthea, who had come in in her nightie when she
+heard the silvery voice of the Phoenix, 'we could never, never have
+expected it to hatch anything so splendid as you.'
+
+The bird smiled. Perhaps you've never seen a bird smile?
+
+'You see,' said Anthea, wrapping herself in the boys' counterpane, for
+the morning was chill, 'we've had things happen to us before;' and she
+told the story of the Psammead, or sand-fairy.
+
+'Ah yes,' said the Phoenix; 'Psammeads were rare, even in my time. I
+remember I used to be called the Psammead of the Desert. I was always
+having compliments paid me; I can't think why.'
+
+'Can YOU give wishes, then?' asked Jane, who had now come in too.
+
+'Oh, dear me, no,' said the Phoenix, contemptuously, 'at least--but I
+hear footsteps approaching. I hasten to conceal myself.' And it did.
+
+I think I said that this day was Saturday. It was also cook's birthday,
+and mother had allowed her and Eliza to go to the Crystal Palace with a
+party of friends, so Jane and Anthea of course had to help to make beds
+and to wash up the breakfast cups, and little things like that. Robert
+and Cyril intended to spend the morning in conversation with the
+Phoenix, but the bird had its own ideas about this.
+
+'I must have an hour or two's quiet,' it said, 'I really must. My nerves
+will give way unless I can get a little rest. You must remember it's two
+thousand years since I had any conversation--I'm out of practice, and I
+must take care of myself. I've often been told that mine is a valuable
+life.' So it nestled down inside an old hatbox of father's, which had
+been brought down from the box-room some days before, when a helmet was
+suddenly needed for a game of tournaments, with its golden head under
+its golden wing, and went to sleep. So then Robert and Cyril moved
+the table back and were going to sit on the carpet and wish themselves
+somewhere else. But before they could decide on the place, Cyril said--
+
+'I don't know. Perhaps it's rather sneakish to begin without the girls.'
+
+'They'll be all the morning,' said Robert, impatiently. And then a thing
+inside him, which tiresome books sometimes call the 'inward monitor',
+said, 'Why don't you help them, then?'
+
+Cyril's 'inward monitor' happened to say the same thing at the same
+moment, so the boys went and helped to wash up the tea-cups, and to dust
+the drawing-room. Robert was so interested that he proposed to clean
+the front doorsteps--a thing he had never been allowed to do. Nor was
+he allowed to do it on this occasion. One reason was that it had already
+been done by cook.
+
+When all the housework was finished, the girls dressed the happy,
+wriggling baby in his blue highwayman coat and three-cornered hat, and
+kept him amused while mother changed her dress and got ready to take
+him over to granny's. Mother always went to granny's every Saturday,
+and generally some of the children went with her; but today they were to
+keep house. And their hearts were full of joyous and delightful feelings
+every time they remembered that the house they would have to keep had a
+Phoenix in it, AND a wishing carpet.
+
+You can always keep the Lamb good and happy for quite a long time if you
+play the Noah's Ark game with him. It is quite simple. He just sits on
+your lap and tells you what animal he is, and then you say the little
+poetry piece about whatever animal he chooses to be.
+
+Of course, some of the animals, like the zebra and the tiger, haven't
+got any poetry, because they are so difficult to rhyme to. The Lamb
+knows quite well which are the poetry animals.
+
+'I'm a baby bear!' said the Lamb, snugging down; and Anthea began:
+
+
+     'I love my little baby bear,
+     I love his nose and toes and hair;
+     I like to hold him in my arm,
+     And keep him VERY safe and warm.'
+
+
+And when she said 'very', of course there was a real bear's hug.
+
+Then came the eel, and the Lamb was tickled till he wriggled exactly
+like a real one:
+
+
+     'I love my little baby eel,
+     He is so squidglety to feel;
+     He'll be an eel when he is big--
+     But now he's just--a--tiny SNIG!'
+
+
+Perhaps you didn't know that a snig was a baby eel? It is, though, and
+the Lamb knew it.
+
+'Hedgehog now-!' he said; and Anthea went on:
+
+
+     'My baby hedgehog, how I like ye,
+     Though your back's so prickly-spiky;
+     Your front is very soft, I've found,
+     So I must love you front ways round!'
+
+
+And then she loved him front ways round, while he squealed with
+pleasure.
+
+It is a very baby game, and, of course, the rhymes are only meant for
+very, very small people--not for people who are old enough to read
+books, so I won't tell you any more of them.
+
+By the time the Lamb had been a baby lion and a baby weazel, and a baby
+rabbit and a baby rat, mother was ready; and she and the Lamb, having
+been kissed by everybody and hugged as thoroughly as it is possible to
+be when you're dressed for out-of-doors, were seen to the tram by the
+boys. When the boys came back, every one looked at every one else and
+said--
+
+'Now!'
+
+They locked the front door and they locked the back door, and they
+fastened all the windows. They moved the table and chairs off the
+carpet, and Anthea swept it.
+
+'We must show it a LITTLE attention,' she said kindly. 'We'll give it
+tea-leaves next time. Carpets like tea-leaves.'
+
+Then every one put on its out-door things, because as Cyril said, they
+didn't know where they might be going, and it makes people stare if you
+go out of doors in November in pinafores and without hats.
+
+Then Robert gently awoke the Phoenix, who yawned and stretched itself,
+and allowed Robert to lift it on to the middle of the carpet, where it
+instantly went to sleep again with its crested head tucked under its
+golden wing as before. Then every one sat down on the carpet.
+
+'Where shall we go?' was of course the question, and it was warmly
+discussed. Anthea wanted to go to Japan. Robert and Cyril voted for
+America, and Jane wished to go to the seaside.
+
+'Because there are donkeys there,' said she.
+
+'Not in November, silly,' said Cyril; and the discussion got warmer and
+warmer, and still nothing was settled.
+
+'I vote we let the Phoenix decide,' said Robert, at last. So they
+stroked it till it woke. 'We want to go somewhere abroad,' they said,
+'and we can't make up our minds where.'
+
+'Let the carpet make up ITS mind, if it has one,' said the Phoenix.
+
+'Just say you wish to go abroad.'
+
+So they did; and the next moment the world seemed to spin upside down,
+and when it was right way up again and they were ungiddy enough to look
+about them, they were out of doors.
+
+Out of doors--this is a feeble way to express where they were. They
+were out of--out of the earth, or off it. In fact, they were floating
+steadily, safely, splendidly, in the crisp clear air, with the pale
+bright blue of the sky above them, and far down below the pale bright
+sun-diamonded waves of the sea. The carpet had stiffened itself somehow,
+so that it was square and firm like a raft, and it steered itself so
+beautifully and kept on its way so flat and fearless that no one was at
+all afraid of tumbling off. In front of them lay land.
+
+'The coast of France,' said the Phoenix, waking up and pointing with
+its wing. 'Where do you wish to go? I should always keep one wish, of
+course--for emergencies--otherwise you may get into an emergency from
+which you can't emerge at all.'
+
+But the children were far too deeply interested to listen.
+
+'I tell you what,' said Cyril: 'let's let the thing go on and on, and
+when we see a place we really want to stop at--why, we'll just stop.
+Isn't this ripping?'
+
+'It's like trains,' said Anthea, as they swept over the low-lying
+coast-line and held a steady course above orderly fields and straight
+roads bordered with poplar trees--'like express trains, only in trains
+you never can see anything because of grown-ups wanting the windows
+shut; and then they breathe on them, and it's like ground glass, and
+nobody can see anything, and then they go to sleep.'
+
+'It's like tobogganing,' said Robert, 'so fast and smooth, only there's
+no door-mat to stop short on--it goes on and on.'
+
+'You darling Phoenix,' said Jane, 'it's all your doing. Oh, look at
+that ducky little church and the women with flappy cappy things on their
+heads.'
+
+'Don't mention it,' said the Phoenix, with sleepy politeness.
+
+'OH!' said Cyril, summing up all the rapture that was in every heart.
+'Look at it all--look at it--and think of the Kentish Town Road!'
+
+Every one looked and every one thought. And the glorious, gliding,
+smooth, steady rush went on, and they looked down on strange and
+beautiful things, and held their breath and let it go in deep sighs, and
+said 'Oh!' and 'Ah!' till it was long past dinner-time.
+
+It was Jane who suddenly said, 'I wish we'd brought that jam tart and
+cold mutton with us. It would have been jolly to have a picnic in the
+air.'
+
+The jam tart and cold mutton were, however, far away, sitting quietly in
+the larder of the house in Camden Town which the children were supposed
+to be keeping. A mouse was at that moment tasting the outside of the
+raspberry jam part of the tart (she had nibbled a sort of gulf, or bay,
+through the pastry edge) to see whether it was the sort of dinner she
+could ask her little mouse-husband to sit down to. She had had a very
+good dinner herself. It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good.
+
+'We'll stop as soon as we see a nice place,' said Anthea. 'I've got
+threepence, and you boys have the fourpence each that your trams didn't
+cost the other day, so we can buy things to eat. I expect the Phoenix
+can speak French.'
+
+The carpet was sailing along over rocks and rivers and trees and towns
+and farms and fields. It reminded everybody of a certain time when all
+of them had had wings, and had flown up to the top of a church tower,
+and had had a feast there of chicken and tongue and new bread and
+soda-water. And this again reminded them how hungry they were. And just
+as they were all being reminded of this very strongly indeed, they saw
+ahead of them some ruined walls on a hill, and strong and upright, and
+really, to look at, as good as new--a great square tower.
+
+'The top of that's just the exactly same size as the carpet,' said Jane.
+'_I_ think it would be good to go to the top of that, because then none
+of the Abby-what's-its-names--I mean natives--would be able to take the
+carpet away even if they wanted to. And some of us could go out and get
+things to eat--buy them honestly, I mean, not take them out of larder
+windows.'
+
+'I think it would be better if we went--' Anthea was beginning; but Jane
+suddenly clenched her hands.
+
+'I don't see why I should never do anything I want, just because I'm
+the youngest. I wish the carpet would fit itself in at the top of that
+tower--so there!'
+
+The carpet made a disconcerting bound, and next moment it was hovering
+above the square top of the tower. Then slowly and carefully it began to
+sink under them. It was like a lift going down with you at the Army and
+Navy Stores.
+
+'I don't think we ought to wish things without all agreeing to them
+first,' said Robert, huffishly. 'Hullo! What on earth?'
+
+For unexpectedly and greyly something was coming up all round the four
+sides of the carpet. It was as if a wall were being built by magic
+quickness. It was a foot high--it was two feet high--three, four, five.
+It was shutting out the light--more and more.
+
+Anthea looked up at the sky and the walls that now rose six feet above
+them.
+
+'We're dropping into the tower,' she screamed. 'THERE WASN'T ANY TOP TO
+IT. So the carpet's going to fit itself in at the bottom.'
+
+Robert sprang to his feet.
+
+'We ought to have--Hullo! an owl's nest.' He put his knee on a jutting
+smooth piece of grey stone, and reached his hand into a deep window
+slit--broad to the inside of the tower, and narrowing like a funnel to
+the outside.
+
+'Look sharp!' cried every one, but Robert did not look sharp enough. By
+the time he had drawn his hand out of the owl's nest--there were no eggs
+there--the carpet had sunk eight feet below him.
+
+'Jump, you silly cuckoo!' cried Cyril, with brotherly anxiety.
+
+But Robert couldn't turn round all in a minute into a jumping position.
+He wriggled and twisted and got on to the broad ledge, and by the time
+he was ready to jump the walls of the tower had risen up thirty feet
+above the others, who were still sinking with the carpet, and Robert
+found himself in the embrasure of a window; alone, for even the owls
+were not at home that day. The wall was smoothish; there was no climbing
+up, and as for climbing down--Robert hid his face in his hands, and
+squirmed back and back from the giddy verge, until the back part of him
+was wedged quite tight in the narrowest part of the window slit.
+
+He was safe now, of course, but the outside part of his window was like
+a frame to a picture of part of the other side of the tower. It was very
+pretty, with moss growing between the stones and little shiny gems; but
+between him and it there was the width of the tower, and nothing in it
+but empty air. The situation was terrible. Robert saw in a flash that
+the carpet was likely to bring them into just the same sort of tight
+places that they used to get into with the wishes the Psammead granted
+them.
+
+And the others--imagine their feelings as the carpet sank slowly and
+steadily to the very bottom of the tower, leaving Robert clinging to the
+wall. Robert did not even try to imagine their feelings--he had quite
+enough to do with his own; but you can.
+
+As soon as the carpet came to a stop on the ground at the bottom of the
+inside of the tower it suddenly lost that raft-like stiffness which had
+been such a comfort during the journey from Camden Town to the topless
+tower, and spread itself limply over the loose stones and little earthy
+mounds at the bottom of the tower, just exactly like any ordinary
+carpet. Also it shrank suddenly, so that it seemed to draw away from
+under their feet, and they stepped quickly off the edges and stood on
+the firm ground, while the carpet drew itself in till it was its proper
+size, and no longer fitted exactly into the inside of the tower, but
+left quite a big space all round it.
+
+Then across the carpet they looked at each other, and then every chin
+was tilted up and every eye sought vainly to see where poor Robert had
+got to. Of course, they couldn't see him.
+
+'I wish we hadn't come,' said Jane.
+
+'You always do,' said Cyril, briefly. 'Look here, we can't leave Robert
+up there. I wish the carpet would fetch him down.'
+
+The carpet seemed to awake from a dream and pull itself together. It
+stiffened itself briskly and floated up between the four walls of the
+tower. The children below craned their heads back, and nearly broke
+their necks in doing it. The carpet rose and rose. It hung poised darkly
+above them for an anxious moment or two; then it dropped down again,
+threw itself on the uneven floor of the tower, and as it did so it
+tumbled Robert out on the uneven floor of the tower.
+
+'Oh, glory!' said Robert, 'that was a squeak. You don't know how I felt.
+I say, I've had about enough for a bit. Let's wish ourselves at home
+again and have a go at that jam tart and mutton. We can go out again
+afterwards.'
+
+'Righto!' said every one, for the adventure had shaken the nerves of
+all. So they all got on to the carpet again, and said--
+
+'I wish we were at home.'
+
+And lo and behold, they were no more at home than before. The carpet
+never moved. The Phoenix had taken the opportunity to go to sleep.
+Anthea woke it up gently.
+
+'Look here,' she said.
+
+'I'm looking,' said the Phoenix.
+
+'We WISHED to be at home, and we're still here,' complained Jane.
+
+'No,' said the Phoenix, looking about it at the high dark walls of the
+tower. 'No; I quite see that.'
+
+'But we wished to be at home,' said Cyril.
+
+'No doubt,' said the bird, politely.
+
+'And the carpet hasn't moved an inch,' said Robert.
+
+'No,' said the Phoenix, 'I see it hasn't.'
+
+'But I thought it was a wishing carpet?'
+
+'So it is,' said the Phoenix.
+
+'Then why--?' asked the children, altogether.
+
+'I did tell you, you know,' said the Phoenix, 'only you are so fond
+of listening to the music of your own voices. It is, indeed, the most
+lovely music to each of us, and therefore--'
+
+'You did tell us WHAT?' interrupted an Exasperated.
+
+'Why, that the carpet only gives you three wishes a day and YOU'VE HAD
+THEM.'
+
+There was a heartfelt silence.
+
+'Then how are we going to get home?' said Cyril, at last.
+
+'I haven't any idea,' replied the Phoenix, kindly. 'Can I fly out and
+get you any little thing?'
+
+'How could you carry the money to pay for it?'
+
+'It isn't necessary. Birds always take what they want. It is not
+regarded as stealing, except in the case of magpies.'
+
+The children were glad to find they had been right in supposing this to
+be the case, on the day when they had wings, and had enjoyed somebody
+else's ripe plums.
+
+'Yes; let the Phoenix get us something to eat, anyway,' Robert urged--'
+('If it will be so kind you mean,' corrected Anthea, in a whisper); 'if
+it will be so kind, and we can be thinking while it's gone.'
+
+So the Phoenix fluttered up through the grey space of the tower and
+vanished at the top, and it was not till it had quite gone that Jane
+said--
+
+'Suppose it never comes back.'
+
+It was not a pleasant thought, and though Anthea at once said, 'Of
+course it will come back; I'm certain it's a bird of its word,' a
+further gloom was cast by the idea. For, curiously enough, there was
+no door to the tower, and all the windows were far, far too high to be
+reached by the most adventurous climber. It was cold, too, and Anthea
+shivered.
+
+'Yes,' said Cyril, 'it's like being at the bottom of a well.'
+
+The children waited in a sad and hungry silence, and got little stiff
+necks with holding their little heads back to look up the inside of the
+tall grey tower, to see if the Phoenix were coming.
+
+At last it came. It looked very big as it fluttered down between the
+walls, and as it neared them the children saw that its bigness was
+caused by a basket of boiled chestnuts which it carried in one claw.
+In the other it held a piece of bread. And in its beak was a very large
+pear. The pear was juicy, and as good as a very small drink. When the
+meal was over every one felt better, and the question of how to get home
+was discussed without any disagreeableness. But no one could think
+of any way out of the difficulty, or even out of the tower; for the
+Phoenix, though its beak and claws had fortunately been strong enough
+to carry food for them, was plainly not equal to flying through the air
+with four well-nourished children.
+
+'We must stay here, I suppose,' said Robert at last, 'and shout out
+every now and then, and some one will hear us and bring ropes and
+ladders, and rescue us like out of mines; and they'll get up a
+subscription to send us home, like castaways.'
+
+'Yes; but we shan't be home before mother is, and then father'll take
+away the carpet and say it's dangerous or something,' said Cyril.
+
+'I DO wish we hadn't come,' said Jane.
+
+And every one else said 'Shut up,' except Anthea, who suddenly awoke the
+Phoenix and said--
+
+'Look here, I believe YOU can help us. Oh, I do wish you would!'
+
+'I will help you as far as lies in my power,' said the Phoenix, at once.
+'What is it you want now?'
+
+'Why, we want to get home,' said every one.
+
+'Oh,' said the Phoenix. 'Ah, hum! Yes. Home, you said? Meaning?'
+
+'Where we live--where we slept last night--where the altar is that your
+egg was hatched on.'
+
+'Oh, there!' said the Phoenix. 'Well, I'll do my best.' It fluttered on
+to the carpet and walked up and down for a few minutes in deep thought.
+Then it drew itself up proudly.
+
+'I CAN help you,' it said. 'I am almost sure I can help you. Unless I
+am grossly deceived I can help you. You won't mind my leaving you for an
+hour or two?' and without waiting for a reply it soared up through the
+dimness of the tower into the brightness above.
+
+'Now,' said Cyril, firmly, 'it said an hour or two. But I've read
+about captives and people shut up in dungeons and catacombs and things
+awaiting release, and I know each moment is an eternity. Those people
+always do something to pass the desperate moments. It's no use our
+trying to tame spiders, because we shan't have time.'
+
+'I HOPE not,' said Jane, doubtfully.
+
+'But we ought to scratch our names on the stones or something.'
+
+'I say, talking of stones,' said Robert, 'you see that heap of stones
+against the wall over in that corner. Well, I'm certain there's a hole
+in the wall there--and I believe it's a door. Yes, look here--the stones
+are round like an arch in the wall; and here's the hole--it's all black
+inside.'
+
+He had walked over to the heap as he spoke and climbed up to
+it--dislodged the top stone of the heap and uncovered a little dark
+space.
+
+Next moment every one was helping to pull down the heap of stones, and
+very soon every one threw off its jacket, for it was warm work.
+
+'It IS a door,' said Cyril, wiping his face, 'and not a bad thing
+either, if--'
+
+He was going to add 'if anything happens to the Phoenix,' but he didn't
+for fear of frightening Jane. He was not an unkind boy when he had
+leisure to think of such things.
+
+The arched hole in the wall grew larger and larger. It was very, very
+black, even compared with the sort of twilight at the bottom of the
+tower; it grew larger because the children kept pulling off the stones
+and throwing them down into another heap. The stones must have been
+there a very long time, for they were covered with moss, and some of
+them were stuck together by it. So it was fairly hard work, as Robert
+pointed out.
+
+When the hole reached to about halfway between the top of the arch
+and the tower, Robert and Cyril let themselves down cautiously on the
+inside, and lit matches. How thankful they felt then that they had a
+sensible father, who did not forbid them to carry matches, as some boys'
+fathers do. The father of Robert and Cyril only insisted on the matches
+being of the kind that strike only on the box.
+
+'It's not a door, it's a sort of tunnel,' Robert cried to the girls,
+after the first match had flared up, flickered, and gone out. 'Stand
+off--we'll push some more stones down!'
+
+They did, amid deep excitement. And now the stone heap was almost
+gone--and before them the girls saw the dark archway leading to unknown
+things. All doubts and fears as to getting home were forgotten in this
+thrilling moment. It was like Monte Cristo--it was like--
+
+'I say,' cried Anthea, suddenly, 'come out! There's always bad air in
+places that have been shut up. It makes your torches go out, and then
+you die. It's called fire-damp, I believe. Come out, I tell you.'
+
+The urgency of her tone actually brought the boys out--and then every
+one took up its jacket and fanned the dark arch with it, so as to
+make the air fresh inside. When Anthea thought the air inside 'must be
+freshened by now,' Cyril led the way into the arch.
+
+The girls followed, and Robert came last, because Jane refused to tail
+the procession lest 'something' should come in after her, and catch at
+her from behind. Cyril advanced cautiously, lighting match after match,
+and peering before him.
+
+'It's a vaulting roof,' he said, 'and it's all stone--all right,
+Panther, don't keep pulling at my jacket! The air must be all right
+because of the matches, silly, and there are--look out--there are steps
+down.'
+
+'Oh, don't let's go any farther,' said Jane, in an agony of reluctance
+(a very painful thing, by the way, to be in). 'I'm sure there are
+snakes, or dens of lions, or something. Do let's go back, and come some
+other time, with candles, and bellows for the fire-damp.'
+
+'Let me get in front of you, then,' said the stern voice of Robert, from
+behind. 'This is exactly the place for buried treasure, and I'm going
+on, anyway; you can stay behind if you like.'
+
+And then, of course, Jane consented to go on.
+
+So, very slowly and carefully, the children went down the steps--there
+were seventeen of them--and at the bottom of the steps were more
+passages branching four ways, and a sort of low arch on the right-hand
+side made Cyril wonder what it could be, for it was too low to be the
+beginning of another passage.
+
+So he knelt down and lit a match, and stooping very low he peeped in.
+
+'There's SOMETHING,' he said, and reached out his hand. It touched
+something that felt more like a damp bag of marbles than anything else
+that Cyril had ever touched.
+
+'I believe it IS a buried treasure,' he cried.
+
+And it was; for even as Anthea cried, 'Oh, hurry up, Squirrel--fetch it
+out!' Cyril pulled out a rotting canvas bag--about as big as the paper
+ones the greengrocer gives you with Barcelona nuts in for sixpence.
+
+'There's more of it, a lot more,' he said.
+
+As he pulled the rotten bag gave way, and the gold coins ran and span
+and jumped and bumped and chinked and clinked on the floor of the dark
+passage.
+
+I wonder what you would say if you suddenly came upon a buried treasure?
+What Cyril said was, 'Oh, bother--I've burnt my fingers!' and as he
+spoke he dropped the match. 'AND IT WAS THE LAST!' he added.
+
+There was a moment of desperate silence. Then Jane began to cry.
+
+'Don't,' said Anthea, 'don't, Pussy--you'll exhaust the air if you cry.
+We can get out all right.'
+
+'Yes,' said Jane, through her sobs, 'and find the Phoenix has come back
+and gone away again--because it thought we'd gone home some other way,
+and--Oh, I WISH we hadn't come.'
+
+Every one stood quite still--only Anthea cuddled Jane up to her and
+tried to wipe her eyes in the dark.
+
+'D-DON'T,' said Jane; 'that's my EAR--I'm not crying with my ears.'
+
+'Come, let's get on out,' said Robert; but that was not so easy, for no
+one could remember exactly which way they had come. It is very difficult
+to remember things in the dark, unless you have matches with you, and
+then of course it is quite different, even if you don't strike one.
+
+Every one had come to agree with Jane's constant wish--and despair was
+making the darkness blacker than ever, when quite suddenly the floor
+seemed to tip up--and a strong sensation of being in a whirling lift
+came upon every one. All eyes were closed--one's eyes always are in the
+dark, don't you think? When the whirling feeling stopped, Cyril said
+'Earthquakes!' and they all opened their eyes.
+
+They were in their own dingy breakfast-room at home, and oh, how light
+and bright and safe and pleasant and altogether delightful it seemed
+after that dark underground tunnel! The carpet lay on the floor, looking
+as calm as though it had never been for an excursion in its life. On
+the mantelpiece stood the Phoenix, waiting with an air of modest yet
+sterling worth for the thanks of the children.
+
+'But how DID you do it?' they asked, when every one had thanked the
+Phoenix again and again.
+
+'Oh, I just went and got a wish from your friend the Psammead.'
+
+'But how DID you know where to find it?'
+
+'I found that out from the carpet; these wishing creatures always know
+all about each other--they're so clannish; like the Scots, you know--all
+related.'
+
+'But, the carpet can't talk, can it?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Then how--'
+
+'How did I get the Psammead's address? I tell you I got it from the
+carpet.'
+
+'DID it speak then?'
+
+'No,' said the Phoenix, thoughtfully, 'it didn't speak, but I gathered
+my information from something in its manner. I was always a singularly
+observant bird.'
+
+It was not till after the cold mutton and the jam tart, as well as the
+tea and bread-and-butter, that any one found time to regret the golden
+treasure which had been left scattered on the floor of the underground
+passage, and which, indeed, no one had thought of till now, since the
+moment when Cyril burnt his fingers at the flame of the last match.
+
+'What owls and goats we were!' said Robert. 'Look how we've always
+wanted treasure--and now--'
+
+'Never mind,' said Anthea, trying as usual to make the best of it.
+'We'll go back again and get it all, and then we'll give everybody
+presents.'
+
+More than a quarter of an hour passed most agreeably in arranging what
+presents should be given to whom, and, when the claims of generosity had
+been satisfied, the talk ran for fifty minutes on what they would buy
+for themselves.
+
+It was Cyril who broke in on Robert's almost too technical account of
+the motor-car on which he meant to go to and from school--
+
+'There!' he said. 'Dry up. It's no good. We can't ever go back. We don't
+know where it is.'
+
+'Don't YOU know?' Jane asked the Phoenix, wistfully.
+
+'Not in the least,' the Phoenix replied, in a tone of amiable regret.
+
+'Then we've lost the treasure,' said Cyril. And they had.
+
+'But we've got the carpet and the Phoenix,' said Anthea.
+
+'Excuse me,' said the bird, with an air of wounded dignity, 'I do SO
+HATE to seem to interfere, but surely you MUST mean the Phoenix and the
+carpet?'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3. THE QUEEN COOK
+
+
+It was on a Saturday that the children made their first glorious journey
+on the wishing carpet. Unless you are too young to read at all, you will
+know that the next day must have been Sunday.
+
+Sunday at 18, Camden Terrace, Camden Town, was always a very pretty
+day. Father always brought home flowers on Saturday, so that the
+breakfast-table was extra beautiful. In November, of course, the flowers
+were chrysanthemums, yellow and coppery coloured. Then there were always
+sausages on toast for breakfast, and these are rapture, after six days
+of Kentish Town Road eggs at fourteen a shilling.
+
+On this particular Sunday there were fowls for dinner, a kind of food
+that is generally kept for birthdays and grand occasions, and there
+was an angel pudding, when rice and milk and oranges and white icing do
+their best to make you happy.
+
+After dinner father was very sleepy indeed, because he had been working
+hard all the week; but he did not yield to the voice that said, 'Go and
+have an hour's rest.' He nursed the Lamb, who had a horrid cough that
+cook said was whooping-cough as sure as eggs, and he said--
+
+'Come along, kiddies; I've got a ripping book from the library, called
+The Golden Age, and I'll read it to you.'
+
+Mother settled herself on the drawing-room sofa, and said she could
+listen quite nicely with her eyes shut. The Lamb snugged into the
+'armchair corner' of daddy's arm, and the others got into a happy heap
+on the hearth-rug. At first, of course, there were too many feet and
+knees and shoulders and elbows, but real comfort was actually settling
+down on them, and the Phoenix and the carpet were put away on the back
+top shelf of their minds (beautiful things that could be taken out and
+played with later), when a surly solid knock came at the drawing-room
+door. It opened an angry inch, and the cook's voice said, 'Please, m',
+may I speak to you a moment?'
+
+Mother looked at father with a desperate expression. Then she put her
+pretty sparkly Sunday shoes down from the sofa, and stood up in them and
+sighed.
+
+'As good fish in the sea,' said father, cheerfully, and it was not till
+much later that the children understood what he meant.
+
+Mother went out into the passage, which is called 'the hall', where the
+umbrella-stand is, and the picture of the 'Monarch of the Glen' in a
+yellow shining frame, with brown spots on the Monarch from the damp
+in the house before last, and there was cook, very red and damp in the
+face, and with a clean apron tied on all crooked over the dirty one that
+she had dished up those dear delightful chickens in. She stood there and
+she seemed to get redder and damper, and she twisted the corner of her
+apron round her fingers, and she said very shortly and fiercely--
+
+'If you please ma'am, I should wish to leave at my day month.' Mother
+leaned against the hatstand. The children could see her looking pale
+through the crack of the door, because she had been very kind to the
+cook, and had given her a holiday only the day before, and it seemed so
+very unkind of the cook to want to go like this, and on a Sunday too.
+
+'Why, what's the matter?' mother said.
+
+'It's them children,' the cook replied, and somehow the children all
+felt that they had known it from the first. They did not remember having
+done anything extra wrong, but it is so frightfully easy to displease a
+cook. 'It's them children: there's that there new carpet in their room,
+covered thick with mud, both sides, beastly yellow mud, and sakes alive
+knows where they got it. And all that muck to clean up on a Sunday! It's
+not my place, and it's not my intentions, so I don't deceive you, ma'am,
+and but for them limbs, which they is if ever there was, it's not a bad
+place, though I says it, and I wouldn't wish to leave, but--'
+
+'I'm very sorry,' said mother, gently. 'I will speak to the children.
+And you had better think it over, and if you REALLY wish to go, tell me
+to-morrow.'
+
+Next day mother had a quiet talk with cook, and cook said she didn't
+mind if she stayed on a bit, just to see.
+
+But meantime the question of the muddy carpet had been gone into
+thoroughly by father and mother. Jane's candid explanation that the
+mud had come from the bottom of a foreign tower where there was buried
+treasure was received with such chilling disbelief that the others
+limited their defence to an expression of sorrow, and of a determination
+'not to do it again'. But father said (and mother agreed with him,
+because mothers have to agree with fathers, and not because it was her
+own idea) that children who coated a carpet on both sides with thick
+mud, and when they were asked for an explanation could only talk silly
+nonsense--that meant Jane's truthful statement--were not fit to have a
+carpet at all, and, indeed, SHOULDN'T have one for a week!
+
+So the carpet was brushed (with tea-leaves, too) which was the only
+comfort Anthea could think of, and folded up and put away in the
+cupboard at the top of the stairs, and daddy put the key in his trousers
+pocket. 'Till Saturday,' said he.
+
+'Never mind,' said Anthea, 'we've got the Phoenix.'
+
+But, as it happened, they hadn't. The Phoenix was nowhere to be found,
+and everything had suddenly settled down from the rosy wild beauty of
+magic happenings to the common damp brownness of ordinary November life
+in Camden Town--and there was the nursery floor all bare boards in
+the middle and brown oilcloth round the outside, and the bareness and
+yellowness of the middle floor showed up the blackbeetles with terrible
+distinctness, when the poor things came out in the evening, as usual, to
+try to make friends with the children. But the children never would.
+
+The Sunday ended in gloom, which even junket for supper in the blue
+Dresden bowl could hardly lighten at all. Next day the Lamb's cough
+was worse. It certainly seemed very whoopy, and the doctor came in his
+brougham carriage.
+
+Every one tried to bear up under the weight of the sorrow which it was
+to know that the wishing carpet was locked up and the Phoenix mislaid. A
+good deal of time was spent in looking for the Phoenix.
+
+'It's a bird of its word,' said Anthea. 'I'm sure it's not deserted us.
+But you know it had a most awfully long fly from wherever it was to near
+Rochester and back, and I expect the poor thing's feeling tired out and
+wants rest. I am sure we may trust it.'
+
+The others tried to feel sure of this, too, but it was hard.
+
+No one could be expected to feel very kindly towards the cook, since it
+was entirely through her making such a fuss about a little foreign mud
+that the carpet had been taken away.
+
+'She might have told us,' said Jane, 'and Panther and I would have
+cleaned it with tea-leaves.'
+
+'She's a cantankerous cat,' said Robert.
+
+'I shan't say what I think about her,' said Anthea, primly, 'because it
+would be evil speaking, lying, and slandering.'
+
+'It's not lying to say she's a disagreeable pig, and a beastly
+blue-nosed Bozwoz,' said Cyril, who had read The Eyes of Light, and
+intended to talk like Tony as soon as he could teach Robert to talk like
+Paul.
+
+And all the children, even Anthea, agreed that even if she wasn't a
+blue-nosed Bozwoz, they wished cook had never been born.
+
+But I ask you to believe that they didn't do all the things on purpose
+which so annoyed the cook during the following week, though I daresay
+the things would not have happened if the cook had been a favourite.
+This is a mystery. Explain it if you can. The things that had happened
+were as follows:
+
+Sunday.--Discovery of foreign mud on both sides of the carpet.
+
+Monday.--Liquorice put on to boil with aniseed balls in a saucepan.
+Anthea did this, because she thought it would be good for the Lamb's
+cough. The whole thing forgotten, and bottom of saucepan burned out. It
+was the little saucepan lined with white that was kept for the baby's
+milk.
+
+Tuesday.--A dead mouse found in pantry. Fish-slice taken to dig grave
+with. By regrettable accident fish-slice broken. Defence: 'The cook
+oughtn't to keep dead mice in pantries.'
+
+Wednesday.--Chopped suet left on kitchen table. Robert added chopped
+soap, but he says he thought the suet was soap too.
+
+Thursday.--Broke the kitchen window by falling against it during a
+perfectly fair game of bandits in the area.
+
+Friday.--Stopped up grating of kitchen sink with putty and filled sink
+with water to make a lake to sail paper boats in. Went away and left the
+tap running. Kitchen hearthrug and cook's shoes ruined.
+
+On Saturday the carpet was restored. There had been plenty of time
+during the week to decide where it should be asked to go when they did
+get it back.
+
+Mother had gone over to granny's, and had not taken the Lamb because he
+had a bad cough, which, cook repeatedly said, was whooping-cough as sure
+as eggs is eggs.
+
+'But we'll take him out, a ducky darling,' said Anthea. 'We'll take
+him somewhere where you can't have whooping-cough. Don't be so silly,
+Robert. If he DOES talk about it no one'll take any notice. He's always
+talking about things he's never seen.'
+
+So they dressed the Lamb and themselves in out-of-doors clothes, and the
+Lamb chuckled and coughed, and laughed and coughed again, poor dear, and
+all the chairs and tables were moved off the carpet by the boys, while
+Jane nursed the Lamb, and Anthea rushed through the house in one last
+wild hunt for the missing Phoenix.
+
+'It's no use waiting for it,' she said, reappearing breathless in the
+breakfast-room. 'But I know it hasn't deserted us. It's a bird of its
+word.'
+
+'Quite so,' said the gentle voice of the Phoenix from beneath the table.
+
+Every one fell on its knees and looked up, and there was the Phoenix
+perched on a crossbar of wood that ran across under the table, and had
+once supported a drawer, in the happy days before the drawer had been
+used as a boat, and its bottom unfortunately trodden out by Raggett's
+Really Reliable School Boots on the feet of Robert.
+
+'I've been here all the time,' said the Phoenix, yawning politely
+behind its claw. 'If you wanted me you should have recited the ode of
+invocation; it's seven thousand lines long, and written in very pure and
+beautiful Greek.'
+
+'Couldn't you tell it us in English?' asked Anthea.
+
+'It's rather long, isn't it?' said Jane, jumping the Lamb on her knee.
+
+'Couldn't you make a short English version, like Tate and Brady?'
+
+'Oh, come along, do,' said Robert, holding out his hand. 'Come along,
+good old Phoenix.'
+
+'Good old BEAUTIFUL Phoenix,' it corrected shyly.
+
+'Good old BEAUTIFUL Phoenix, then. Come along, come along,' said Robert,
+impatiently, with his hand still held out.
+
+The Phoenix fluttered at once on to his wrist.
+
+'This amiable youth,' it said to the others, 'has miraculously been able
+to put the whole meaning of the seven thousand lines of Greek invocation
+into one English hexameter--a little misplaced some of the words--but--
+
+'Oh, come along, come along, good old beautiful Phoenix!'
+
+'Not perfect, I admit--but not bad for a boy of his age.'
+
+'Well, now then,' said Robert, stepping back on to the carpet with the
+golden Phoenix on his wrist.
+
+'You look like the king's falconer,' said Jane, sitting down on the
+carpet with the baby on her lap.
+
+Robert tried to go on looking like it. Cyril and Anthea stood on the
+carpet.
+
+'We shall have to get back before dinner,' said Cyril, 'or cook will
+blow the gaff.'
+
+'She hasn't sneaked since Sunday,' said Anthea.
+
+'She--' Robert was beginning, when the door burst open and the cook,
+fierce and furious, came in like a whirlwind and stood on the corner of
+the carpet, with a broken basin in one hand and a threat in the other,
+which was clenched.
+
+'Look 'ere!' she cried, 'my only basin; and what the powers am I to
+make the beefsteak and kidney pudding in that your ma ordered for your
+dinners? You don't deserve no dinners, so yer don't.'
+
+'I'm awfully sorry, cook,' said Anthea gently; 'it was my fault, and
+I forgot to tell you about it. It got broken when we were telling our
+fortunes with melted lead, you know, and I meant to tell you.'
+
+'Meant to tell me,' replied the cook; she was red with anger, and really
+I don't wonder--'meant to tell! Well, _I_ mean to tell, too. I've held
+my tongue this week through, because the missus she said to me quiet
+like, "We mustn't expect old heads on young shoulders," but now I shan't
+hold it no longer. There was the soap you put in our pudding, and me and
+Eliza never so much as breathed it to your ma--though well we might--and
+the saucepan, and the fish-slice, and--My gracious cats alive! what 'ave
+you got that blessed child dressed up in his outdoors for?'
+
+'We aren't going to take him out,' said Anthea; 'at least--' She stopped
+short, for though they weren't going to take him out in the Kentish
+Town Road, they certainly intended to take him elsewhere. But not at all
+where cook meant when she said 'out'. This confused the truthful Anthea.
+
+'Out!' said the cook, 'that I'll take care you don't;' and she snatched
+the Lamb from the lap of Jane, while Anthea and Robert caught her by the
+skirts and apron. 'Look here,' said Cyril, in stern desperation, 'will
+you go away, and make your pudding in a pie-dish, or a flower-pot, or a
+hot-water can, or something?'
+
+'Not me,' said the cook, briefly; 'and leave this precious poppet for
+you to give his deathercold to.'
+
+'I warn you,' said Cyril, solemnly. 'Beware, ere yet it be too late.'
+
+'Late yourself the little popsey-wopsey,' said the cook, with angry
+tenderness. 'They shan't take it out, no more they shan't. And--Where
+did you get that there yellow fowl?' She pointed to the Phoenix.
+
+Even Anthea saw that unless the cook lost her situation the loss would
+be theirs.
+
+'I wish,' she said suddenly, 'we were on a sunny southern shore, where
+there can't be any whooping-cough.'
+
+She said it through the frightened howls of the Lamb, and the sturdy
+scoldings of the cook, and instantly the giddy-go-round-and-falling-lift
+feeling swept over the whole party, and the cook sat down flat on the
+carpet, holding the screaming Lamb tight to her stout print-covered
+self, and calling on St Bridget to help her. She was an Irishwoman.
+
+The moment the tipsy-topsy-turvy feeling stopped, the cook opened her
+eyes, gave one sounding screech and shut them again, and Anthea took the
+opportunity to get the desperately howling Lamb into her own arms.
+
+'It's all right,' she said; 'own Panther's got you. Look at the trees,
+and the sand, and the shells, and the great big tortoises. Oh DEAR, how
+hot it is!'
+
+It certainly was; for the trusty carpet had laid itself out on a
+southern shore that was sunny and no mistake, as Robert remarked. The
+greenest of green slopes led up to glorious groves where palm-trees and
+all the tropical flowers and fruits that you read of in Westward Ho! and
+Fair Play were growing in rich profusion. Between the green, green slope
+and the blue, blue sea lay a stretch of sand that looked like a carpet
+of jewelled cloth of gold, for it was not greyish as our northern sand
+is, but yellow and changing--opal-coloured like sunshine and rainbows.
+And at the very moment when the wild, whirling, blinding, deafening,
+tumbling upside-downness of the carpet-moving stopped, the children had
+the happiness of seeing three large live turtles waddle down to the edge
+of the sea and disappear in the water. And it was hotter than you can
+possibly imagine, unless you think of ovens on a baking-day.
+
+Every one without an instant's hesitation tore off its
+London-in-November outdoor clothes, and Anthea took off the Lamb's
+highwayman blue coat and his three-cornered hat, and then his jersey,
+and then the Lamb himself suddenly slipped out of his little blue tight
+breeches and stood up happy and hot in his little white shirt.
+
+'I'm sure it's much warmer than the seaside in the summer,' said Anthea.
+'Mother always lets us go barefoot then.'
+
+So the Lamb's shoes and socks and gaiters came off, and he stood digging
+his happy naked pink toes into the golden smooth sand.
+
+'I'm a little white duck-dickie,' said he--'a little white duck-dickie
+what swims,' and splashed quacking into a sandy pool.
+
+'Let him,' said Anthea; 'it can't hurt him. Oh, how hot it is!'
+
+The cook suddenly opened her eyes and screamed, shut them, screamed
+again, opened her eyes once more and said--
+
+'Why, drat my cats alive, what's all this? It's a dream, I expect.
+
+Well, it's the best I ever dreamed. I'll look it up in the dream-book
+to-morrow. Seaside and trees and a carpet to sit on. I never did!'
+
+'Look here,' said Cyril, 'it isn't a dream; it's real.'
+
+'Ho yes!' said the cook; 'they always says that in dreams.'
+
+'It's REAL, I tell you,' Robert said, stamping his foot. 'I'm not going
+to tell you how it's done, because that's our secret.' He winked heavily
+at each of the others in turn. 'But you wouldn't go away and make that
+pudding, so we HAD to bring you, and I hope you like it.'
+
+'I do that, and no mistake,' said the cook unexpectedly; 'and it being a
+dream it don't matter what I say; and I WILL say, if it's my last word,
+that of all the aggravating little varmints--' 'Calm yourself, my good
+woman,' said the Phoenix.
+
+'Good woman, indeed,' said the cook; 'good woman yourself' Then she
+saw who it was that had spoken. 'Well, if I ever,' said she; 'this is
+something like a dream! Yellow fowls a-talking and all! I've heard of
+such, but never did I think to see the day.'
+
+'Well, then,' said Cyril, impatiently, 'sit here and see the day now.
+It's a jolly fine day. Here, you others--a council!' They walked along
+the shore till they were out of earshot of the cook, who still sat
+gazing about her with a happy, dreamy, vacant smile.
+
+'Look here,' said Cyril, 'we must roll the carpet up and hide it, so
+that we can get at it at any moment. The Lamb can be getting rid of
+his whooping-cough all the morning, and we can look about; and if the
+savages on this island are cannibals, we'll hook it, and take her back.
+And if not, we'll LEAVE HER HERE.'
+
+'Is that being kind to servants and animals, like the clergyman said?'
+asked Jane.
+
+'Nor she isn't kind,' retorted Cyril.
+
+'Well--anyway,' said Anthea, 'the safest thing is to leave the carpet
+there with her sitting on it. Perhaps it'll be a lesson to her, and
+anyway, if she thinks it's a dream it won't matter what she says when
+she gets home.'
+
+So the extra coats and hats and mufflers were piled on the carpet. Cyril
+shouldered the well and happy Lamb, the Phoenix perched on Robert's
+wrist, and 'the party of explorers prepared to enter the interior'.
+
+The grassy slope was smooth, but under the trees there were tangled
+creepers with bright, strange-shaped flowers, and it was not easy to
+walk.
+
+'We ought to have an explorer's axe,' said Robert. 'I shall ask father
+to give me one for Christmas.'
+
+There were curtains of creepers with scented blossoms hanging from the
+trees, and brilliant birds darted about quite close to their faces.
+
+'Now, tell me honestly,' said the Phoenix, 'are there any birds here
+handsomer than I am? Don't be afraid of hurting my feelings--I'm a
+modest bird, I hope.'
+
+'Not one of them,' said Robert, with conviction, 'is a patch upon you!'
+
+'I was never a vain bird,' said the Phoenix, 'but I own that you confirm
+my own impression. I will take a flight.' It circled in the air for a
+moment, and, returning to Robert's wrist, went on, 'There is a path to
+the left.'
+
+And there was. So now the children went on through the wood more quickly
+and comfortably, the girls picking flowers and the Lamb inviting
+the 'pretty dickies' to observe that he himself was a 'little white
+real-water-wet duck!'
+
+And all this time he hadn't whooping-coughed once.
+
+The path turned and twisted, and, always threading their way amid a
+tangle of flowers, the children suddenly passed a corner and found
+themselves in a forest clearing, where there were a lot of pointed
+huts--the huts, as they knew at once, of SAVAGES.
+
+The boldest heart beat more quickly. Suppose they WERE cannibals. It was
+a long way back to the carpet.
+
+'Hadn't we better go back?' said Jane. 'Go NOW,' she said, and her voice
+trembled a little. 'Suppose they eat us.'
+
+'Nonsense, Pussy,' said Cyril, firmly. 'Look, there's a goat tied up.
+That shows they don't eat PEOPLE.'
+
+'Let's go on and say we're missionaries,' Robert suggested.
+
+'I shouldn't advise THAT,' said the Phoenix, very earnestly.
+
+'Why not?'
+
+'Well, for one thing, it isn't true,' replied the golden bird.
+
+It was while they stood hesitating on the edge of the clearing that
+a tall man suddenly came out of one of the huts. He had hardly any
+clothes, and his body all over was a dark and beautiful coppery
+colour--just like the chrysanthemums father had brought home on
+Saturday. In his hand he held a spear. The whites of his eyes and the
+white of his teeth were the only light things about him, except that
+where the sun shone on his shiny brown body it looked white, too. If
+you will look carefully at the next shiny savage you meet with next to
+nothing on, you will see at once--if the sun happens to be shining at
+the time--that I am right about this.
+
+The savage looked at the children. Concealment was impossible. He
+uttered a shout that was more like 'Oo goggery bag-wag' than anything
+else the children had ever heard, and at once brown coppery people leapt
+out of every hut, and swarmed like ants about the clearing. There was
+no time for discussion, and no one wanted to discuss anything, anyhow.
+Whether these coppery people were cannibals or not now seemed to matter
+very little.
+
+Without an instant's hesitation the four children turned and ran back
+along the forest path; the only pause was Anthea's. She stood back to
+let Cyril pass, because he was carrying the Lamb, who screamed with
+delight. (He had not whooping-coughed a single once since the carpet
+landed him on the island.)
+
+'Gee-up, Squirrel; gee-gee,' he shouted, and Cyril did gee-up. The path
+was a shorter cut to the beach than the creeper-covered way by which
+they had come, and almost directly they saw through the trees the
+shining blue-and-gold-and-opal of sand and sea.
+
+'Stick to it,' cried Cyril, breathlessly.
+
+They did stick to it; they tore down the sands--they could hear behind
+them as they ran the patter of feet which they knew, too well, were
+copper-coloured.
+
+The sands were golden and opal-coloured--and BARE. There were wreaths of
+tropic seaweed, there were rich tropic shells of the kind you would not
+buy in the Kentish Town Road under at least fifteen pence a pair.
+There were turtles basking lumpily on the water's edge--but no cook, no
+clothes, and no carpet.
+
+'On, on! Into the sea!' gasped Cyril. 'They MUST hate water.
+I've--heard--savages always--dirty.'
+
+Their feet were splashing in the warm shallows before his breathless
+words were ended. The calm baby-waves were easy to go through. It is
+warm work running for your life in the tropics, and the coolness of the
+water was delicious. They were up to their arm-pits now, and Jane was up
+to her chin.
+
+'Look!' said the Phoenix. 'What are they pointing at?'
+
+The children turned; and there, a little to the west was a head--a head
+they knew, with a crooked cap upon it. It was the head of the cook.
+
+For some reason or other the savages had stopped at the water's edge
+and were all talking at the top of their voices, and all were pointing
+copper-coloured fingers, stiff with interest and excitement, at the head
+of the cook.
+
+The children hurried towards her as quickly as the water would let them.
+
+'What on earth did you come out here for?' Robert shouted; 'and where on
+earth's the carpet?'
+
+'It's not on earth, bless you,' replied the cook, happily; 'it's UNDER
+ME--in the water. I got a bit warm setting there in the sun, and I just
+says, "I wish I was in a cold bath"--just like that--and next minute
+here I was! It's all part of the dream.'
+
+Every one at once saw how extremely fortunate it was that the carpet had
+had the sense to take the cook to the nearest and largest bath--the sea,
+and how terrible it would have been if the carpet had taken itself and
+her to the stuffy little bath-room of the house in Camden Town!
+
+'Excuse me,' said the Phoenix's soft voice, breaking in on the general
+sigh of relief, 'but I think these brown people want your cook.'
+
+'To--to eat?' whispered Jane, as well as she could through the water
+which the plunging Lamb was dashing in her face with happy fat hands and
+feet.
+
+'Hardly,' rejoined the bird. 'Who wants cooks to EAT? Cooks are ENGAGED,
+not eaten. They wish to engage her.'
+
+'How can you understand what they say?' asked Cyril, doubtfully.
+
+'It's as easy as kissing your claw,' replied the bird. 'I speak and
+understand ALL languages, even that of your cook, which is difficult and
+unpleasing. It's quite easy, when you know how it's done. It just comes
+to you. I should advise you to beach the carpet and land the cargo--the
+cook, I mean. You can take my word for it, the copper-coloured ones will
+not harm you now.'
+
+It is impossible not to take the word of a Phoenix when it tells you
+to. So the children at once got hold of the corners of the carpet,
+and, pulling it from under the cook, towed it slowly in through the
+shallowing water, and at last spread it on the sand. The cook, who had
+followed, instantly sat down on it, and at once the copper-coloured
+natives, now strangely humble, formed a ring round the carpet, and fell
+on their faces on the rainbow-and-gold sand. The tallest savage spoke
+in this position, which must have been very awkward for him; and Jane
+noticed that it took him quite a long time to get the sand out of his
+mouth afterwards.
+
+'He says,' the Phoenix remarked after some time, 'that they wish to
+engage your cook permanently.'
+
+'Without a character?' asked Anthea, who had heard her mother speak of
+such things.
+
+'They do not wish to engage her as cook, but as queen; and queens need
+not have characters.'
+
+There was a breathless pause.
+
+'WELL,' said Cyril, 'of all the choices! But there's no accounting for
+tastes.'
+
+Every one laughed at the idea of the cook's being engaged as queen; they
+could not help it.
+
+'I do not advise laughter,' warned the Phoenix, ruffling out his golden
+feathers, which were extremely wet. 'And it's not their own choice. It
+seems that there is an ancient prophecy of this copper-coloured tribe
+that a great queen should some day arise out of the sea with a white
+crown on her head, and--and--well, you see! There's the crown!'
+
+It pointed its claw at cook's cap; and a very dirty cap it was, because
+it was the end of the week.
+
+'That's the white crown,' it said; 'at least, it's nearly white--very
+white indeed compared to the colour THEY are--and anyway, it's quite
+white enough.'
+
+Cyril addressed the cook. 'Look here!' said he, 'these brown people want
+you to be their queen. They're only savages, and they don't know any
+better. Now would you really like to stay? or, if you'll promise not to
+be so jolly aggravating at home, and not to tell any one a word about
+to-day, we'll take you back to Camden Town.'
+
+'No, you don't,' said the cook, in firm, undoubting tones. 'I've always
+wanted to be the Queen, God bless her! and I always thought what a good
+one I should make; and now I'm going to. IF it's only in a dream, it's
+well worth while. And I don't go back to that nasty underground kitchen,
+and me blamed for everything; that I don't, not till the dream's
+finished and I wake up with that nasty bell a rang-tanging in my
+ears--so I tell you.'
+
+'Are you SURE,' Anthea anxiously asked the Phoenix, 'that she will be
+quite safe here?'
+
+'She will find the nest of a queen a very precious and soft thing,' said
+the bird, solemnly.
+
+'There--you hear,' said Cyril. 'You're in for a precious soft thing,
+so mind you're a good queen, cook. It's more than you'd any right to
+expect, but long may you reign.'
+
+Some of the cook's copper-coloured subjects now advanced from the forest
+with long garlands of beautiful flowers, white and sweet-scented, and
+hung them respectfully round the neck of their new sovereign.
+
+'What! all them lovely bokays for me!' exclaimed the enraptured cook.
+'Well, this here is something LIKE a dream, I must say.'
+
+She sat up very straight on the carpet, and the copper-coloured ones,
+themselves wreathed in garlands of the gayest flowers, madly stuck
+parrot feathers in their hair and began to dance. It was a dance such as
+you have never seen; it made the children feel almost sure that the
+cook was right, and that they were all in a dream. Small, strange-shaped
+drums were beaten, odd-sounding songs were sung, and the dance got
+faster and faster and odder and odder, till at last all the dancers fell
+on the sand tired out.
+
+The new queen, with her white crown-cap all on one side, clapped wildly.
+
+'Brayvo!' she cried, 'brayvo! It's better than the Albert Edward
+Music-hall in the Kentish Town Road. Go it again!'
+
+But the Phoenix would not translate this request into the
+copper-coloured language; and when the savages had recovered their
+breath, they implored their queen to leave her white escort and come
+with them to their huts.
+
+'The finest shall be yours, O queen,' said they.
+
+'Well--so long!' said the cook, getting heavily on to her feet, when the
+Phoenix had translated this request. 'No more kitchens and attics for
+me, thank you. I'm off to my royal palace, I am; and I only wish this
+here dream would keep on for ever and ever.'
+
+She picked up the ends of the garlands that trailed round her feet,
+and the children had one last glimpse of her striped stockings and worn
+elastic-side boots before she disappeared into the shadow of the forest,
+surrounded by her dusky retainers, singing songs of rejoicing as they
+went.
+
+'WELL!' said Cyril, 'I suppose she's all right, but they don't seem to
+count us for much, one way or the other.'
+
+'Oh,' said the Phoenix, 'they think you're merely dreams. The prophecy
+said that the queen would arise from the waves with a white crown and
+surrounded by white dream-children. That's about what they think YOU
+are!'
+
+'And what about dinner?' said Robert, abruptly.
+
+'There won't be any dinner, with no cook and no pudding-basin,' Anthea
+reminded him; 'but there's always bread-and-butter.'
+
+'Let's get home,' said Cyril.
+
+The Lamb was furiously unwishful to be dressed in his warm clothes
+again, but Anthea and Jane managed it, by force disguised as coaxing,
+and he never once whooping-coughed.
+
+Then every one put on its own warm things and took its place on the
+carpet.
+
+A sound of uncouth singing still came from beyond the trees where the
+copper-coloured natives were crooning songs of admiration and respect
+to their white-crowned queen. Then Anthea said 'Home,' just as duchesses
+and other people do to their coachmen, and the intelligent carpet in
+one whirling moment laid itself down in its proper place on the nursery
+floor. And at that very moment Eliza opened the door and said--
+
+'Cook's gone! I can't find her anywhere, and there's no dinner ready.
+She hasn't taken her box nor yet her outdoor things. She just ran out to
+see the time, I shouldn't wonder--the kitchen clock never did give her
+satisfaction--and she's got run over or fell down in a fit as likely
+as not. You'll have to put up with the cold bacon for your dinners; and
+what on earth you've got your outdoor things on for I don't know.
+And then I'll slip out and see if they know anything about her at the
+police-station.'
+
+But nobody ever knew anything about the cook any more, except the
+children, and, later, one other person.
+
+
+Mother was so upset at losing the cook, and so anxious about her, that
+Anthea felt most miserable, as though she had done something very wrong
+indeed. She woke several times in the night, and at last decided that
+she would ask the Phoenix to let her tell her mother all about it. But
+there was no opportunity to do this next day, because the Phoenix, as
+usual, had gone to sleep in some out-of-the-way spot, after asking, as a
+special favour, not to be disturbed for twenty-four hours.
+
+The Lamb never whooping-coughed once all that Sunday, and mother and
+father said what good medicine it was that the doctor had given him. But
+the children knew that it was the southern shore where you can't have
+whooping-cough that had cured him. The Lamb babbled of coloured sand
+and water, but no one took any notice of that. He often talked of things
+that hadn't happened.
+
+It was on Monday morning, very early indeed, that Anthea woke and
+suddenly made up her mind. She crept downstairs in her night-gown (it
+was very chilly), sat down on the carpet, and with a beating heart
+wished herself on the sunny shore where you can't have whooping-cough,
+and next moment there she was.
+
+The sand was splendidly warm. She could feel it at once, even through
+the carpet. She folded the carpet, and put it over her shoulders like
+a shawl, for she was determined not to be parted from it for a single
+instant, no matter how hot it might be to wear.
+
+Then trembling a little, and trying to keep up her courage by saying
+over and over, 'It is my DUTY, it IS my duty,' she went up the forest
+path.
+
+'Well, here you are again,' said the cook, directly she saw Anthea.
+
+'This dream does keep on!'
+
+The cook was dressed in a white robe; she had no shoes and stockings
+and no cap and she was sitting under a screen of palm-leaves, for it was
+afternoon in the island, and blazing hot. She wore a flower wreath
+on her hair, and copper-coloured boys were fanning her with peacock's
+feathers.
+
+'They've got the cap put away,' she said. 'They seem to think a lot of
+it. Never saw one before, I expect.'
+
+'Are you happy?' asked Anthea, panting; the sight of the cook as queen
+quite took her breath away.
+
+'I believe you, my dear,' said the cook, heartily. 'Nothing to do unless
+you want to. But I'm getting rested now. Tomorrow I'm going to start
+cleaning out my hut, if the dream keeps on, and I shall teach them
+cooking; they burns everything to a cinder now unless they eats it raw.'
+
+'But can you talk to them?'
+
+'Lor' love a duck, yes!' the happy cook-queen replied; 'it's quite easy
+to pick up. I always thought I should be quick at foreign languages.
+I've taught them to understand "dinner," and "I want a drink," and "You
+leave me be," already.'
+
+'Then you don't want anything?' Anthea asked earnestly and anxiously.
+
+'Not me, miss; except if you'd only go away. I'm afraid of me waking
+up with that bell a-going if you keep on stopping here a-talking to me.
+Long as this here dream keeps up I'm as happy as a queen.'
+
+'Goodbye, then,' said Anthea, gaily, for her conscience was clear now.
+
+She hurried into the wood, threw herself on the ground, and said
+'Home'--and there she was, rolled in the carpet on the nursery floor.
+
+'SHE'S all right, anyhow,' said Anthea, and went back to bed. 'I'm glad
+somebody's pleased. But mother will never believe me when I tell her.'
+
+The story is indeed a little difficult to believe. Still, you might try.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4. TWO BAZAARS
+
+
+Mother was really a great dear. She was pretty and she was loving, and
+most frightfully good when you were ill, and always kind, and almost
+always just. That is, she was just when she understood things. But
+of course she did not always understand things. No one understands
+everything, and mothers are not angels, though a good many of them come
+pretty near it. The children knew that mother always WANTED to do what
+was best for them, even if she was not clever enough to know exactly
+what was the best. That was why all of them, but much more particularly
+Anthea, felt rather uncomfortable at keeping the great secret from her
+of the wishing carpet and the Phoenix. And Anthea, whose inside mind was
+made so that she was able to be much more uncomfortable than the others,
+had decided that she MUST tell her mother the truth, however little
+likely it was that her mother would believe it.
+
+'Then I shall have done what's right,' said she to the Phoenix; 'and if
+she doesn't believe me it won't be my fault--will it?'
+
+'Not in the least,' said the golden bird. 'And she won't, so you're
+quite safe.'
+
+Anthea chose a time when she was doing her home-lessons--they were
+Algebra and Latin, German, English, and Euclid--and she asked her mother
+whether she might come and do them in the drawing-room--'so as to be
+quiet,' she said to her mother; and to herself she said, 'And that's not
+the real reason. I hope I shan't grow up a LIAR.'
+
+Mother said, 'Of course, dearie,' and Anthea started swimming through
+a sea of x's and y's and z's. Mother was sitting at the mahogany bureau
+writing letters.
+
+'Mother dear,' said Anthea.
+
+'Yes, love-a-duck,' said mother.
+
+'About cook,' said Anthea. '_I_ know where she is.'
+
+'Do you, dear?' said mother. 'Well, I wouldn't take her back after the
+way she has behaved.'
+
+'It's not her fault,' said Anthea. 'May I tell you about it from the
+beginning?'
+
+Mother laid down her pen, and her nice face had a resigned expression.
+As you know, a resigned expression always makes you want not to tell
+anybody anything.
+
+'It's like this,' said Anthea, in a hurry: 'that egg, you know, that
+came in the carpet; we put it in the fire and it hatched into the
+Phoenix, and the carpet was a wishing carpet--and--'
+
+'A very nice game, darling,' said mother, taking up her pen. 'Now do
+be quiet. I've got a lot of letters to write. I'm going to Bournemouth
+to-morrow with the Lamb--and there's that bazaar.'
+
+Anthea went back to x y z, and mother's pen scratched busily.
+
+'But, mother,' said Anthea, when mother put down the pen to lick an
+envelope, 'the carpet takes us wherever we like--and--'
+
+'I wish it would take you where you could get a few nice Eastern things
+for my bazaar,' said mother. 'I promised them, and I've no time to go to
+Liberty's now.'
+
+'It shall,' said Anthea, 'but, mother--'
+
+'Well, dear,' said mother, a little impatiently, for she had taken up
+her pen again.
+
+'The carpet took us to a place where you couldn't have whooping-cough,
+and the Lamb hasn't whooped since, and we took cook because she was
+so tiresome, and then she would stay and be queen of the savages. They
+thought her cap was a crown, and--'
+
+'Darling one,' said mother, 'you know I love to hear the things you make
+up--but I am most awfully busy.'
+
+'But it's true,' said Anthea, desperately.
+
+'You shouldn't say that, my sweet,' said mother, gently. And then Anthea
+knew it was hopeless.
+
+'Are you going away for long?' asked Anthea.
+
+'I've got a cold,' said mother, 'and daddy's anxious about it, and the
+Lamb's cough.'
+
+'He hasn't coughed since Saturday,' the Lamb's eldest sister
+interrupted.
+
+'I wish I could think so,' mother replied. 'And daddy's got to go to
+Scotland. I do hope you'll be good children.'
+
+'We will, we will,' said Anthea, fervently. 'When's the bazaar?'
+
+'On Saturday,' said mother, 'at the schools. Oh, don't talk any more,
+there's a treasure! My head's going round, and I've forgotten how to
+spell whooping-cough.'
+
+
+Mother and the Lamb went away, and father went away, and there was a new
+cook who looked so like a frightened rabbit that no one had the heart to
+do anything to frighten her any more than seemed natural to her.
+
+The Phoenix begged to be excused. It said it wanted a week's rest, and
+asked that it might not be disturbed. And it hid its golden gleaming
+self, and nobody could find it.
+
+So that when Wednesday afternoon brought an unexpected holiday, and
+every one decided to go somewhere on the carpet, the journey had to
+be undertaken without the Phoenix. They were debarred from any carpet
+excursions in the evening by a sudden promise to mother, exacted in the
+agitation of parting, that they would not be out after six at night,
+except on Saturday, when they were to go to the bazaar, and were pledged
+to put on their best clothes, to wash themselves to the uttermost, and
+to clean their nails--not with scissors, which are scratchy and bad,
+but with flat-sharpened ends of wooden matches, which do no harm to any
+one's nails.
+
+'Let's go and see the Lamb,' said Jane.
+
+But every one was agreed that if they appeared suddenly in Bournemouth
+it would frighten mother out of her wits, if not into a fit. So they
+sat on the carpet, and thought and thought and thought till they almost
+began to squint.
+
+'Look here,' said Cyril, 'I know. Please carpet, take us somewhere where
+we can see the Lamb and mother and no one can see us.'
+
+'Except the Lamb,' said Jane, quickly.
+
+And the next moment they found themselves recovering from the
+upside-down movement--and there they were sitting on the carpet, and
+the carpet was laid out over another thick soft carpet of brown
+pine-needles. There were green pine-trees overhead, and a swift clear
+little stream was running as fast as ever it could between steep
+banks--and there, sitting on the pine-needle carpet, was mother, without
+her hat; and the sun was shining brightly, although it was November--and
+there was the Lamb, as jolly as jolly and not whooping at all.
+
+'The carpet's deceived us,' said Robert, gloomily; 'mother will see us
+directly she turns her head.'
+
+But the faithful carpet had not deceived them.
+
+Mother turned her dear head and looked straight at them, and DID NOT SEE
+THEM!
+
+'We're invisible,' Cyril whispered: 'what awful larks!'
+
+But to the girls it was not larks at all. It was horrible to have mother
+looking straight at them, and her face keeping the same, just as though
+they weren't there.
+
+'I don't like it,' said Jane. 'Mother never looked at us like that
+before. Just as if she didn't love us--as if we were somebody else's
+children, and not very nice ones either--as if she didn't care whether
+she saw us or not.'
+
+'It is horrid,' said Anthea, almost in tears.
+
+But at this moment the Lamb saw them, and plunged towards the carpet,
+shrieking, 'Panty, own Panty--an' Pussy, an' Squiggle--an' Bobs, oh,
+oh!'
+
+Anthea caught him and kissed him, so did Jane; they could not help
+it--he looked such a darling, with his blue three-cornered hat all on
+one side, and his precious face all dirty--quite in the old familiar
+way.
+
+'I love you, Panty; I love you--and you, and you, and you,' cried the
+Lamb.
+
+It was a delicious moment. Even the boys thumped their baby brother
+joyously on the back.
+
+Then Anthea glanced at mother--and mother's face was a pale sea-green
+colour, and she was staring at the Lamb as if she thought he had gone
+mad. And, indeed, that was exactly what she did think.
+
+'My Lamb, my precious! Come to mother,' she cried, and jumped up and ran
+to the baby.
+
+She was so quick that the invisible children had to leap back, or she
+would have felt them; and to feel what you can't see is the worst sort
+of ghost-feeling. Mother picked up the Lamb and hurried away from the
+pinewood.
+
+'Let's go home,' said Jane, after a miserable silence. 'It feels just
+exactly as if mother didn't love us.'
+
+But they couldn't bear to go home till they had seen mother meet another
+lady, and knew that she was safe. You cannot leave your mother to go
+green in the face in a distant pinewood, far from all human aid, and
+then go home on your wishing carpet as though nothing had happened.
+
+When mother seemed safe the children returned to the carpet, and said
+'Home'--and home they went.
+
+'I don't care about being invisible myself,' said Cyril, 'at least, not
+with my own family. It would be different if you were a prince, or a
+bandit, or a burglar.'
+
+And now the thoughts of all four dwelt fondly on the dear greenish face
+of mother.
+
+'I wish she hadn't gone away,' said Jane; 'the house is simply beastly
+without her.'
+
+'I think we ought to do what she said,' Anthea put in. 'I saw something
+in a book the other day about the wishes of the departed being sacred.'
+
+'That means when they've departed farther off,' said Cyril. 'India's
+coral or Greenland's icy, don't you know; not Bournemouth. Besides, we
+don't know what her wishes are.'
+
+'She SAID'--Anthea was very much inclined to cry--'she said, "Get Indian
+things for my bazaar;" but I know she thought we couldn't, and it was
+only play.'
+
+'Let's get them all the same,' said Robert. 'We'll go the first thing on
+Saturday morning.'
+
+And on Saturday morning, the first thing, they went.
+
+There was no finding the Phoenix, so they sat on the beautiful wishing
+carpet, and said--
+
+'We want Indian things for mother's bazaar. Will you please take us
+where people will give us heaps of Indian things?'
+
+The docile carpet swirled their senses away, and restored them on the
+outskirts of a gleaming white Indian town. They knew it was Indian at
+once, by the shape of the domes and roofs; and besides, a man went by on
+an elephant, and two English soldiers went along the road, talking like
+in Mr Kipling's books--so after that no one could have any doubt as to
+where they were. They rolled up the carpet and Robert carried it, and
+they walked bodily into the town.
+
+It was very warm, and once more they had to take off their
+London-in-November coats, and carry them on their arms.
+
+The streets were narrow and strange, and the clothes of the people in
+the streets were stranger and the talk of the people was strangest of
+all.
+
+'I can't understand a word,' said Cyril. 'How on earth are we to ask for
+things for our bazaar?'
+
+'And they're poor people, too,' said Jane; 'I'm sure they are. What we
+want is a rajah or something.'
+
+Robert was beginning to unroll the carpet, but the others stopped him,
+imploring him not to waste a wish.
+
+'We asked the carpet to take us where we could get Indian things for
+bazaars,' said Anthea, 'and it will.'
+
+Her faith was justified.
+
+Just as she finished speaking a very brown gentleman in a turban came
+up to them and bowed deeply. He spoke, and they thrilled to the sound of
+English words.
+
+'My ranee, she think you very nice childs. She asks do you lose
+yourselves, and do you desire to sell carpet? She see you from her
+palkee. You come see her--yes?'
+
+They followed the stranger, who seemed to have a great many more teeth
+in his smile than are usual, and he led them through crooked streets
+to the ranee's palace. I am not going to describe the ranee's palace,
+because I really have never seen the palace of a ranee, and Mr Kipling
+has. So you can read about it in his books. But I know exactly what
+happened there.
+
+The old ranee sat on a low-cushioned seat, and there were a lot of other
+ladies with her--all in trousers and veils, and sparkling with tinsel
+and gold and jewels. And the brown, turbaned gentleman stood behind a
+sort of carved screen, and interpreted what the children said and what
+the queen said. And when the queen asked to buy the carpet, the children
+said 'No.'
+
+'Why?' asked the ranee.
+
+And Jane briefly said why, and the interpreter interpreted. The queen
+spoke, and then the interpreter said--
+
+'My mistress says it is a good story, and you tell it all through
+without thought of time.'
+
+And they had to. It made a long story, especially as it had all to be
+told twice--once by Cyril and once by the interpreter. Cyril rather
+enjoyed himself. He warmed to his work, and told the tale of the Phoenix
+and the Carpet, and the Lone Tower, and the Queen-Cook, in language that
+grew insensibly more and more Arabian Nightsy, and the ranee and her
+ladies listened to the interpreter, and rolled about on their fat
+cushions with laughter.
+
+When the story was ended she spoke, and the interpreter explained that
+she had said, 'Little one, thou art a heaven-born teller of tales,' and
+she threw him a string of turquoises from round her neck.
+
+'OH, how lovely!' cried Jane and Anthea.
+
+Cyril bowed several times, and then cleared his throat and said--
+
+'Thank her very, very much; but I would much rather she gave me some of
+the cheap things in the bazaar. Tell her I want them to sell again, and
+give the money to buy clothes for poor people who haven't any.'
+
+'Tell him he has my leave to sell my gift and clothe the naked with its
+price,' said the queen, when this was translated.
+
+But Cyril said very firmly, 'No, thank you. The things have got to be
+sold to-day at our bazaar, and no one would buy a turquoise necklace at
+an English bazaar. They'd think it was sham, or else they'd want to know
+where we got it.'
+
+So then the queen sent out for little pretty things, and her servants
+piled the carpet with them.
+
+'I must needs lend you an elephant to carry them away,' she said,
+laughing.
+
+But Anthea said, 'If the queen will lend us a comb and let us wash our
+hands and faces, she shall see a magic thing. We and the carpet and all
+these brass trays and pots and carved things and stuffs and things will
+just vanish away like smoke.'
+
+The queen clapped her hands at this idea, and lent the children a
+sandal-wood comb inlaid with ivory lotus-flowers. And they washed their
+faces and hands in silver basins. Then Cyril made a very polite farewell
+speech, and quite suddenly he ended with the words--
+
+'And I wish we were at the bazaar at our schools.'
+
+And of course they were. And the queen and her ladies were left with
+their mouths open, gazing at the bare space on the inlaid marble floor
+where the carpet and the children had been.
+
+'That is magic, if ever magic was!' said the queen, delighted with the
+incident; which, indeed, has given the ladies of that court something to
+talk about on wet days ever since.
+
+Cyril's stories had taken some time, so had the meal of strange sweet
+foods that they had had while the little pretty things were being
+bought, and the gas in the schoolroom was already lighted. Outside, the
+winter dusk was stealing down among the Camden Town houses.
+
+'I'm glad we got washed in India,' said Cyril. 'We should have been
+awfully late if we'd had to go home and scrub.'
+
+'Besides,' Robert said, 'it's much warmer washing in India. I shouldn't
+mind it so much if we lived there.'
+
+The thoughtful carpet had dumped the children down in a dusky space
+behind the point where the corners of two stalls met. The floor was
+littered with string and brown paper, and baskets and boxes were heaped
+along the wall.
+
+The children crept out under a stall covered with all sorts of
+table-covers and mats and things, embroidered beautifully by idle
+ladies with no real work to do. They got out at the end, displacing a
+sideboard-cloth adorned with a tasteful pattern of blue geraniums. The
+girls got out unobserved, so did Cyril; but Robert, as he cautiously
+emerged, was actually walked on by Mrs Biddle, who kept the stall. Her
+large, solid foot stood firmly on the small, solid hand of Robert and
+who can blame Robert if he DID yell a little?
+
+A crowd instantly collected. Yells are very unusual at bazaars, and
+every one was intensely interested. It was several seconds before the
+three free children could make Mrs Biddle understand that what she
+was walking on was not a schoolroom floor, or even, as she presently
+supposed, a dropped pin-cushion, but the living hand of a suffering
+child. When she became aware that she really had hurt him, she grew very
+angry indeed. When people have hurt other people by accident, the one
+who does the hurting is always much the angriest. I wonder why.
+
+'I'm very sorry, I'm sure,' said Mrs Biddle; but she spoke more in anger
+than in sorrow. 'Come out! whatever do you mean by creeping about under
+the stalls, like earwigs?'
+
+'We were looking at the things in the corner.'
+
+'Such nasty, prying ways,' said Mrs Biddle, 'will never make you
+successful in life. There's nothing there but packing and dust.'
+
+'Oh, isn't there!' said Jane. 'That's all you know.'
+
+'Little girl, don't be rude,' said Mrs Biddle, flushing violet.
+
+'She doesn't mean to be; but there ARE some nice things there, all the
+same,' said Cyril; who suddenly felt how impossible it was to inform the
+listening crowd that all the treasures piled on the carpet were mother's
+contributions to the bazaar. No one would believe it; and if they did,
+and wrote to thank mother, she would think--well, goodness only knew
+what she would think. The other three children felt the same.
+
+'I should like to see them,' said a very nice lady, whose friends
+had disappointed her, and who hoped that these might be belated
+contributions to her poorly furnished stall.
+
+She looked inquiringly at Robert, who said, 'With pleasure, don't
+mention it,' and dived back under Mrs Biddle's stall.
+
+'I wonder you encourage such behaviour,' said Mrs Biddle. 'I always
+speak my mind, as you know, Miss Peasmarsh; and, I must say, I am
+surprised.' She turned to the crowd. 'There is no entertainment here,'
+she said sternly. 'A very naughty little boy has accidentally hurt
+himself, but only slightly. Will you please disperse? It will only
+encourage him in naughtiness if he finds himself the centre of
+attraction.'
+
+The crowd slowly dispersed. Anthea, speechless with fury, heard a nice
+curate say, 'Poor little beggar!' and loved the curate at once and for
+ever.
+
+Then Robert wriggled out from under the stall with some Benares brass
+and some inlaid sandalwood boxes.
+
+'Liberty!' cried Miss Peasmarsh. 'Then Charles has not forgotten, after
+all.'
+
+'Excuse me,' said Mrs Biddle, with fierce politeness, 'these objects are
+deposited behind MY stall. Some unknown donor who does good by stealth,
+and would blush if he could hear you claim the things. Of course they
+are for me.'
+
+'My stall touches yours at the corner,' said poor Miss Peasmarsh,
+timidly, 'and my cousin did promise--'
+
+The children sidled away from the unequal contest and mingled with
+the crowd. Their feelings were too deep for words--till at last Robert
+said--
+
+'That stiff-starched PIG!'
+
+'And after all our trouble! I'm hoarse with gassing to that trousered
+lady in India.'
+
+'The pig-lady's very, very nasty,' said Jane.
+
+It was Anthea who said, in a hurried undertone, 'She isn't very nice,
+and Miss Peasmarsh is pretty and nice too. Who's got a pencil?'
+
+It was a long crawl, under three stalls, but Anthea did it. A large
+piece of pale blue paper lay among the rubbish in the corner.
+
+She folded it to a square and wrote upon it, licking the pencil at every
+word to make it mark quite blackly: 'All these Indian things are for
+pretty, nice Miss Peasmarsh's stall.' She thought of adding, 'There is
+nothing for Mrs Biddle;' but she saw that this might lead to suspicion,
+so she wrote hastily: 'From an unknown donna,' and crept back among the
+boards and trestles to join the others.
+
+So that when Mrs Biddle appealed to the bazaar committee, and the corner
+of the stall was lifted and shifted, so that stout clergymen and heavy
+ladies could get to the corner without creeping under stalls, the blue
+paper was discovered, and all the splendid, shining Indian things were
+given over to Miss Peasmarsh, and she sold them all, and got thirty-five
+pounds for them.
+
+'I don't understand about that blue paper,' said Mrs Biddle. 'It looks
+to me like the work of a lunatic. And saying you were nice and pretty!
+It's not the work of a sane person.'
+
+Anthea and Jane begged Miss Peasmarsh to let them help her to sell the
+things, because it was their brother who had announced the good news
+that the things had come. Miss Peasmarsh was very willing, for now her
+stall, that had been SO neglected, was surrounded by people who wanted
+to buy, and she was glad to be helped. The children noted that Mrs
+Biddle had not more to do in the way of selling than she could manage
+quite well. I hope they were not glad--for you should forgive your
+enemies, even if they walk on your hands and then say it is all your
+naughty fault. But I am afraid they were not so sorry as they ought to
+have been.
+
+It took some time to arrange the things on the stall. The carpet was
+spread over it, and the dark colours showed up the brass and silver and
+ivory things. It was a happy and busy afternoon, and when Miss Peasmarsh
+and the girls had sold every single one of the little pretty things from
+the Indian bazaar, far, far away, Anthea and Jane went off with the
+boys to fish in the fishpond, and dive into the bran-pie, and hear the
+cardboard band, and the phonograph, and the chorus of singing birds that
+was done behind a screen with glass tubes and glasses of water.
+
+They had a beautiful tea, suddenly presented to them by the nice curate,
+and Miss Peasmarsh joined them before they had had more than three cakes
+each. It was a merry party, and the curate was extremely pleasant to
+every one, 'even to Miss Peasmarsh,' as Jane said afterwards.
+
+'We ought to get back to the stall,' said Anthea, when no one could
+possibly eat any more, and the curate was talking in a low voice to Miss
+Peas marsh about 'after Easter'.
+
+'There's nothing to go back for,' said Miss Peasmarsh gaily; 'thanks to
+you dear children we've sold everything.'
+
+'There--there's the carpet,' said Cyril.
+
+'Oh,' said Miss Peasmarsh, radiantly, 'don't bother about the carpet.
+I've sold even that. Mrs Biddle gave me ten shillings for it. She said
+it would do for her servant's bedroom.'
+
+'Why,' said Jane, 'her servants don't HAVE carpets. We had cook from
+her, and she told us so.'
+
+'No scandal about Queen Elizabeth, if YOU please,' said the curate,
+cheerfully; and Miss Peasmarsh laughed, and looked at him as though she
+had never dreamed that any one COULD be so amusing. But the others were
+struck dumb. How could they say, 'The carpet is ours!' For who brings
+carpets to bazaars?
+
+The children were now thoroughly wretched. But I am glad to say that
+their wretchedness did not make them forget their manners, as it does
+sometimes, even with grown-up people, who ought to know ever so much
+better.
+
+They said, 'Thank you very much for the jolly tea,' and 'Thanks for
+being so jolly,' and 'Thanks awfully for giving us such a jolly time;'
+for the curate had stood fish-ponds, and bran-pies, and phonographs, and
+the chorus of singing birds, and had stood them like a man. The girls
+hugged Miss Peasmarsh, and as they went away they heard the curate say--
+
+'Jolly little kids, yes, but what about--you will let it be directly
+after Easter. Ah, do say you will--'
+
+And Jane ran back and said, before Anthea could drag her away, 'What are
+you going to do after Easter?'
+
+Miss Peasmarsh smiled and looked very pretty indeed. And the curate
+said--
+
+'I hope I am going to take a trip to the Fortunate Islands.'
+
+'I wish we could take you on the wishing carpet,' said Jane.
+
+'Thank you,' said the curate, 'but I'm afraid I can't wait for that. I
+must go to the Fortunate Islands before they make me a bishop. I should
+have no time afterwards.'
+
+'I've always thought I should marry a bishop,' said Jane: 'his aprons
+would come in so useful. Wouldn't YOU like to marry a bishop, Miss
+Peasmarsh?'
+
+It was then that they dragged her away.
+
+As it was Robert's hand that Mrs Biddle had walked on, it was decided
+that he had better not recall the incident to her mind, and so make
+her angry again. Anthea and Jane had helped to sell things at the rival
+stall, so they were not likely to be popular.
+
+A hasty council of four decided that Mrs Biddle would hate Cyril less
+than she would hate the others, so the others mingled with the crowd,
+and it was he who said to her--
+
+'Mrs Biddle, WE meant to have that carpet. Would you sell it to us? We
+would give you--'
+
+'Certainly not,' said Mrs Biddle. 'Go away, little boy.'
+
+There was that in her tone which showed Cyril, all too plainly, the
+hopelessness of persuasion. He found the others and said--
+
+'It's no use; she's like a lioness robbed of its puppies. We must watch
+where it goes--and--Anthea, I don't care what you say. It's our own
+carpet. It wouldn't be burglary. It would be a sort of forlorn hope
+rescue party--heroic and daring and dashing, and not wrong at all.'
+
+The children still wandered among the gay crowd--but there was no
+pleasure there for them any more. The chorus of singing birds sounded
+just like glass tubes being blown through water, and the phonograph
+simply made a horrid noise, so that you could hardly hear yourself
+speak. And the people were buying things they couldn't possibly want,
+and it all seemed very stupid. And Mrs Biddle had bought the wishing
+carpet for ten shillings. And the whole of life was sad and grey and
+dusty, and smelt of slight gas escapes, and hot people, and cake and
+crumbs, and all the children were very tired indeed.
+
+They found a corner within sight of the carpet, and there they waited
+miserably, till it was far beyond their proper bedtime. And when it was
+ten the people who had bought things went away, but the people who had
+been selling stayed to count up their money.
+
+'And to jaw about it,' said Robert. 'I'll never go to another bazaar as
+long as ever I live. My hand is swollen as big as a pudding. I expect
+the nails in her horrible boots were poisoned.'
+
+Just then some one who seemed to have a right to interfere said--
+
+'Everything is over now; you had better go home.'
+
+So they went. And then they waited on the pavement under the gas lamp,
+where ragged children had been standing all the evening to listen to
+the band, and their feet slipped about in the greasy mud till Mrs Biddle
+came out and was driven away in a cab with the many things she hadn't
+sold, and the few things she had bought--among others the carpet. The
+other stall-holders left their things at the school till Monday morning,
+but Mrs Biddle was afraid some one would steal some of them, so she took
+them in a cab.
+
+The children, now too desperate to care for mud or appearances, hung
+on behind the cab till it reached Mrs Biddle's house. When she and the
+carpet had gone in and the door was shut Anthea said--
+
+'Don't let's burgle--I mean do daring and dashing rescue acts--till
+we've given her a chance. Let's ring and ask to see her.'
+
+The others hated to do this, but at last they agreed, on condition that
+Anthea would not make any silly fuss about the burglary afterwards, if
+it really had to come to that.
+
+So they knocked and rang, and a scared-looking parlourmaid opened the
+front door. While they were asking for Mrs Biddle they saw her. She was
+in the dining-room, and she had already pushed back the table and spread
+out the carpet to see how it looked on the floor.
+
+'I knew she didn't want it for her servants' bedroom,' Jane muttered.
+
+Anthea walked straight past the uncomfortable parlourmaid, and the
+others followed her. Mrs Biddle had her back to them, and was smoothing
+down the carpet with the same boot that had trampled on the hand
+of Robert. So that they were all in the room, and Cyril, with great
+presence of mind, had shut the room door before she saw them.
+
+'Who is it, Jane?' she asked in a sour voice; and then turning suddenly,
+she saw who it was. Once more her face grew violet--a deep, dark violet.
+'You wicked daring little things!' she cried, 'how dare you come here?
+At this time of night, too. Be off, or I'll send for the police.'
+
+'Don't be angry,' said Anthea, soothingly, 'we only wanted to ask you
+to let us have the carpet. We have quite twelve shillings between us,
+and--'
+
+'How DARE you?' cried Mrs Biddle, and her voice shook with angriness.
+
+'You do look horrid,' said Jane suddenly.
+
+Mrs Biddle actually stamped that booted foot of hers. 'You rude,
+barefaced child!' she said.
+
+Anthea almost shook Jane; but Jane pushed forward in spite of her.
+
+'It really IS our nursery carpet,' she said, 'you ask ANY ONE if it
+isn't.'
+
+'Let's wish ourselves home,' said Cyril in a whisper.
+
+'No go,' Robert whispered back, 'she'd be there too, and raving mad as
+likely as not. Horrid thing, I hate her!'
+
+'I wish Mrs Biddle was in an angelic good temper,' cried Anthea,
+suddenly. 'It's worth trying,' she said to herself.
+
+Mrs Biddle's face grew from purple to violet, and from violet to mauve,
+and from mauve to pink. Then she smiled quite a jolly smile.
+
+'Why, so I am!' she said, 'what a funny idea! Why shouldn't I be in a
+good temper, my dears.'
+
+Once more the carpet had done its work, and not on Mrs Biddle alone. The
+children felt suddenly good and happy.
+
+'You're a jolly good sort,' said Cyril. 'I see that now. I'm sorry we
+vexed you at the bazaar to-day.'
+
+'Not another word,' said the changed Mrs Biddle. 'Of course you shall
+have the carpet, my dears, if you've taken such a fancy to it. No, no; I
+won't have more than the ten shillings I paid.'
+
+'It does seem hard to ask you for it after you bought it at the bazaar,'
+said Anthea; 'but it really IS our nursery carpet. It got to the bazaar
+by mistake, with some other things.'
+
+'Did it really, now? How vexing!' said Mrs Biddle, kindly. 'Well, my
+dears, I can very well give the extra ten shillings; so you take your
+carpet and we'll say no more about it. Have a piece of cake before you
+go! I'm so sorry I stepped on your hand, my boy. Is it all right now?'
+
+'Yes, thank you,' said Robert. 'I say, you ARE good.'
+
+'Not at all,' said Mrs Biddle, heartily. 'I'm delighted to be able to
+give any little pleasure to you dear children.'
+
+And she helped them to roll up the carpet, and the boys carried it away
+between them.
+
+'You ARE a dear,' said Anthea, and she and Mrs Biddle kissed each other
+heartily.
+
+
+'WELL!' said Cyril as they went along the street.
+
+'Yes,' said Robert, 'and the odd part is that you feel just as if it
+was REAL--her being so jolly, I mean--and not only the carpet making her
+nice.'
+
+'Perhaps it IS real,' said Anthea, 'only it was covered up with
+crossness and tiredness and things, and the carpet took them away.'
+
+'I hope it'll keep them away,' said Jane; 'she isn't ugly at all when
+she laughs.'
+
+The carpet has done many wonders in its day; but the case of Mrs
+Biddle is, I think, the most wonderful. For from that day she was never
+anything like so disagreeable as she was before, and she sent a lovely
+silver tea-pot and a kind letter to Miss Peasmarsh when the pretty lady
+married the nice curate; just after Easter it was, and they went to
+Italy for their honeymoon.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 5. THE TEMPLE
+
+
+'I wish we could find the Phoenix,' said Jane. 'It's much better company
+than the carpet.'
+
+'Beastly ungrateful, little kids are,' said Cyril.
+
+'No, I'm not; only the carpet never says anything, and it's so helpless.
+It doesn't seem able to take care of itself. It gets sold, and taken
+into the sea, and things like that. You wouldn't catch the Phoenix
+getting sold.'
+
+It was two days after the bazaar. Every one was a little cross--some
+days are like that, usually Mondays, by the way. And this was a Monday.
+
+'I shouldn't wonder if your precious Phoenix had gone off for good,'
+said Cyril; 'and I don't know that I blame it. Look at the weather!'
+
+'It's not worth looking at,' said Robert. And indeed it wasn't.
+
+'The Phoenix hasn't gone--I'm sure it hasn't,' said Anthea. 'I'll have
+another look for it.'
+
+Anthea looked under tables and chairs, and in boxes and baskets, in
+mother's work-bag and father's portmanteau, but still the Phoenix showed
+not so much as the tip of one shining feather.
+
+Then suddenly Robert remembered how the whole of the Greek invocation
+song of seven thousand lines had been condensed by him into one English
+hexameter, so he stood on the carpet and chanted--
+
+  'Oh, come along, come along, you good old beautiful Phoenix,'
+
+and almost at once there was a rustle of wings down the kitchen stairs,
+and the Phoenix sailed in on wide gold wings.
+
+'Where on earth HAVE you been?' asked Anthea. 'I've looked everywhere
+for you.'
+
+'Not EVERYWHERE,' replied the bird, 'because you did not look in the
+place where I was. Confess that that hallowed spot was overlooked by
+you.'
+
+'WHAT hallowed spot?' asked Cyril, a little impatiently, for time was
+hastening on, and the wishing carpet still idle.
+
+'The spot,' said the Phoenix, 'which I hallowed by my golden presence
+was the Lutron.'
+
+'The WHAT?'
+
+'The bath--the place of washing.'
+
+'I'm sure you weren't,' said Jane. 'I looked there three times and moved
+all the towels.'
+
+'I was concealed,' said the Phoenix, 'on the summit of a metal
+column--enchanted, I should judge, for it felt warm to my golden toes,
+as though the glorious sun of the desert shone ever upon it.'
+
+'Oh, you mean the cylinder,' said Cyril: 'it HAS rather a comforting
+feel, this weather. And now where shall we go?'
+
+And then, of course, the usual discussion broke out as to where they
+should go and what they should do. And naturally, every one wanted to do
+something that the others did not care about.
+
+'I am the eldest,' Cyril remarked, 'let's go to the North Pole.'
+
+'This weather! Likely!' Robert rejoined. 'Let's go to the Equator.'
+
+'I think the diamond mines of Golconda would be nice,' said Anthea;
+'don't you agree, Jane?'
+
+'No, I don't,' retorted Jane, 'I don't agree with you. I don't agree
+with anybody.'
+
+The Phoenix raised a warning claw.
+
+'If you cannot agree among yourselves, I fear I shall have to leave
+you,' it said.
+
+'Well, where shall we go? You decide!' said all.
+
+'If I were you,' said the bird, thoughtfully, 'I should give the carpet
+a rest. Besides, you'll lose the use of your legs if you go everywhere
+by carpet. Can't you take me out and explain your ugly city to me?'
+
+'We will if it clears up,' said Robert, without enthusiasm. 'Just look
+at the rain. And why should we give the carpet a rest?'
+
+'Are you greedy and grasping, and heartless and selfish?' asked the
+bird, sharply.
+
+'NO!' said Robert, with indignation.
+
+'Well then!' said the Phoenix. 'And as to the rain--well, I am not fond
+of rain myself. If the sun knew _I_ was here--he's very fond of shining
+on me because I look so bright and golden. He always says I repay a
+little attention. Haven't you some form of words suitable for use in wet
+weather?'
+
+'There's "Rain, rain, go away,"' said Anthea; 'but it never DOES go.'
+
+'Perhaps you don't say the invocation properly,' said the bird.
+
+     'Rain, rain, go away,
+     Come again another day,
+     Little baby wants to play,'
+
+said Anthea.
+
+'That's quite wrong; and if you say it in that sort of dull way, I can
+quite understand the rain not taking any notice. You should open the
+window and shout as loud as you can--
+
+     'Rain, rain, go away,
+     Come again another day;
+     Now we want the sun, and so,
+     Pretty rain, be kind and go!
+
+'You should always speak politely to people when you want them to do
+things, and especially when it's going away that you want them to do.
+And to-day you might add--
+
+     'Shine, great sun, the lovely Phoe-
+     Nix is here, and wants to be
+     Shone on, splendid sun, by thee!'
+
+'That's poetry!' said Cyril, decidedly.
+
+'It's like it,' said the more cautious Robert.
+
+'I was obliged to put in "lovely",' said the Phoenix, modestly, 'to make
+the line long enough.'
+
+'There are plenty of nasty words just that length,' said Jane; but every
+one else said 'Hush!' And then they opened the window and shouted the
+seven lines as loud as they could, and the Phoenix said all the words
+with them, except 'lovely', and when they came to that it looked down
+and coughed bashfully.
+
+The rain hesitated a moment and then went away.
+
+'There's true politeness,' said the Phoenix, and the next moment it was
+perched on the window-ledge, opening and shutting its radiant wings and
+flapping out its golden feathers in such a flood of glorious sunshine as
+you sometimes have at sunset in autumn time. People said afterwards that
+there had not been such sunshine in December for years and years and
+years.
+
+'And now,' said the bird, 'we will go out into the city, and you shall
+take me to see one of my temples.'
+
+'Your temples?'
+
+'I gather from the carpet that I have many temples in this land.'
+
+'I don't see how you CAN find anything out from it,' said Jane: 'it
+never speaks.'
+
+'All the same, you can pick up things from a carpet,' said the bird;
+'I've seen YOU do it. And I have picked up several pieces of information
+in this way. That papyrus on which you showed me my picture--I
+understand that it bears on it the name of the street of your city in
+which my finest temple stands, with my image graved in stone and in
+metal over against its portal.'
+
+'You mean the fire insurance office,' said Robert. 'It's not really a
+temple, and they don't--'
+
+'Excuse me,' said the Phoenix, coldly, 'you are wholly misinformed. It
+IS a temple, and they do.'
+
+'Don't let's waste the sunshine,' said Anthea; 'we might argue as we go
+along, to save time.'
+
+So the Phoenix consented to make itself a nest in the breast of Robert's
+Norfolk jacket, and they all went out into the splendid sunshine. The
+best way to the temple of the Phoenix seemed to be to take the tram, and
+on the top of it the children talked, while the Phoenix now and then
+put out a wary beak, cocked a cautious eye, and contradicted what the
+children were saying.
+
+It was a delicious ride, and the children felt how lucky they were to
+have had the money to pay for it. They went with the tram as far as it
+went, and when it did not go any farther they stopped too, and got off.
+The tram stops at the end of the Gray's Inn Road, and it was Cyril
+who thought that one might well find a short cut to the Phoenix Office
+through the little streets and courts that lie tightly packed between
+Fetter Lane and Ludgate Circus. Of course, he was quite mistaken, as
+Robert told him at the time, and afterwards Robert did not forbear to
+remind his brother how he had said so. The streets there were small
+and stuffy and ugly, and crowded with printers' boys and binders' girls
+coming out from work; and these stared so hard at the pretty red coats
+and caps of the sisters that they wished they had gone some other way.
+And the printers and binders made very personal remarks, advising Jane
+to get her hair cut, and inquiring where Anthea had bought that hat.
+Jane and Anthea scorned to reply, and Cyril and Robert found that they
+were hardly a match for the rough crowd. They could think of nothing
+nasty enough to say. They turned a corner sharply, and then Anthea
+pulled Jane into an archway, and then inside a door; Cyril and Robert
+quickly followed, and the jeering crowd passed by without seein them.
+
+Anthea drew a long breath.
+
+'How awful!' she said. 'I didn't know there were such people, except in
+books.'
+
+'It was a bit thick; but it's partly you girls' fault, coming out in
+those flashy coats.'
+
+'We thought we ought to, when we were going out with the Phoenix,' said
+Jane; and the bird said, 'Quite right, too'--and incautiously put out
+his head to give her a wink of encouragement.
+
+And at the same instant a dirty hand reached through the grim balustrade
+of the staircase beside them and clutched the Phoenix, and a hoarse
+voice said--
+
+'I say, Urb, blowed if this ain't our Poll parrot what we lost. Thank
+you very much, lidy, for bringin' 'im home to roost.'
+
+The four turned swiftly. Two large and ragged boys were crouched amid
+the dark shadows of the stairs. They were much larger than Robert and
+Cyril, and one of them had snatched the Phoenix away and was holding it
+high above their heads.
+
+'Give me that bird,' said Cyril, sternly: 'it's ours.'
+
+'Good arternoon, and thankin' you,' the boy went on, with maddening
+mockery. 'Sorry I can't give yer tuppence for yer trouble--but I've
+'ad to spend my fortune advertising for my vallyable bird in all the
+newspapers. You can call for the reward next year.'
+
+'Look out, Ike,' said his friend, a little anxiously; 'it 'ave a beak on
+it.'
+
+'It's other parties as'll have the Beak on to 'em presently,' said Ike,
+darkly, 'if they come a-trying to lay claims on my Poll parrot. You just
+shut up, Urb. Now then, you four little gells, get out er this.'
+
+'Little girls!' cried Robert. 'I'll little girl you!'
+
+He sprang up three stairs and hit out.
+
+There was a squawk--the most bird-like noise any one had ever heard
+from the Phoenix--and a fluttering, and a laugh in the darkness, and Ike
+said--
+
+'There now, you've been and gone and strook my Poll parrot right in the
+fevvers--strook 'im something crool, you 'ave.'
+
+Robert stamped with fury. Cyril felt himself growing pale with rage,
+and with the effort of screwing up his brain to make it clever enough to
+think of some way of being even with those boys. Anthea and Jane were as
+angry as the boys, but it made them want to cry. Yet it was Anthea who
+said--
+
+'Do, PLEASE, let us have the bird.'
+
+'Dew, PLEASE, get along and leave us an' our bird alone.'
+
+'If you don't,' said Anthea, 'I shall fetch the police.'
+
+'You better!' said he who was named Urb. 'Say, Ike, you twist the
+bloomin' pigeon's neck; he ain't worth tuppence.'
+
+'Oh, no,' cried Jane, 'don't hurt it. Oh, don't; it is such a pet.'
+
+'I won't hurt it,' said Ike; 'I'm 'shamed of you, Urb, for to think of
+such a thing. Arf a shiner, miss, and the bird is yours for life.'
+
+'Half a WHAT?' asked Anthea.
+
+'Arf a shiner, quid, thick 'un--half a sov, then.'
+
+'I haven't got it--and, besides, it's OUR bird,' said Anthea.
+
+'Oh, don't talk to him,' said Cyril and then Jane said suddenly--
+
+'Phoenix--dear Phoenix, we can't do anything. YOU must manage it.'
+
+'With pleasure,' said the Phoenix--and Ike nearly dropped it in his
+amazement.
+
+'I say, it do talk, suthin' like,' said he.
+
+'Youths,' said the Phoenix, 'sons of misfortune, hear my words.'
+
+'My eyes!' said Ike.
+
+'Look out, Ike,' said Urb, 'you'll throttle the joker--and I see at
+wunst 'e was wuth 'is weight in flimsies.'00
+
+'Hearken, O Eikonoclastes, despiser of sacred images--and thou, Urbanus,
+dweller in the sordid city. Forbear this adventure lest a worse thing
+befall.'
+
+'Luv' us!' said Ike, 'ain't it been taught its schoolin' just!'
+
+'Restore me to my young acolytes and escape unscathed. Retain me--and--'
+
+'They must ha' got all this up, case the Polly got pinched,' said Ike.
+'Lor' lumme, the artfulness of them young uns!'
+
+'I say, slosh 'em in the geseech and get clear off with the swag's wot I
+say,' urged Herbert.
+
+'Right O,' said Isaac.
+
+'Forbear,' repeated the Phoenix, sternly. 'Who pinched the click off of
+the old bloke in Aldermanbury?' it added, in a changed tone.
+
+'Who sneaked the nose-rag out of the young gell's 'and in Bell Court?
+Who--'
+
+'Stow it,' said Ike. 'You! ugh! yah!--leave go of me. Bash him off, Urb;
+'e'll have my bloomin' eyes outer my ed.'
+
+There were howls, a scuffle, a flutter; Ike and Urb fled up the stairs,
+and the Phoenix swept out through the doorway. The children followed and
+the Phoenix settled on Robert, 'like a butterfly on a rose,' as Anthea
+said afterwards, and wriggled into the breast of his Norfolk jacket,
+'like an eel into mud,' as Cyril later said.
+
+'Why ever didn't you burn him? You could have, couldn't you?' asked
+Robert, when the hurried flight through the narrow courts had ended in
+the safe wideness of Farringdon Street.
+
+'I could have, of course,' said the bird, 'but I didn't think it would
+be dignified to allow myself to get warm about a little thing like that.
+The Fates, after all, have not been illiberal to me. I have a good many
+friends among the London sparrows, and I have a beak and claws.'
+
+These happenings had somewhat shaken the adventurous temper of the
+children, and the Phoenix had to exert its golden self to hearten them
+up.
+
+Presently the children came to a great house in Lombard Street, and
+there, on each side of the door, was the image of the Phoenix carved in
+stone, and set forth on shining brass were the words--
+
+     PHOENIX FIRE OFFICE
+
+
+'One moment,' said the bird. 'Fire? For altars, I suppose?'
+
+'_I_ don't know,' said Robert; he was beginning to feel shy, and that
+always made him rather cross.
+
+'Oh, yes, you do,' Cyril contradicted. 'When people's houses are burnt
+down the Phoenix gives them new houses. Father told me; I asked him.'
+
+'The house, then, like the Phoenix, rises from its ashes? Well have my
+priests dealt with the sons of men!'
+
+'The sons of men pay, you know,' said Anthea; 'but it's only a little
+every year.'
+
+'That is to maintain my priests,' said the bird, 'who, in the hour of
+affliction, heal sorrows and rebuild houses. Lead on; inquire for the
+High Priest. I will not break upon them too suddenly in all my glory.
+Noble and honour-deserving are they who make as nought the evil deeds of
+the lame-footed and unpleasing Hephaestus.'
+
+'I don't know what you're talking about, and I wish you wouldn't muddle
+us with new names. Fire just happens. Nobody does it--not as a deed,
+you know,' Cyril explained. 'If they did the Phoenix wouldn't help them,
+because its a crime to set fire to things. Arsenic, or something they
+call it, because it's as bad as poisoning people. The Phoenix wouldn't
+help THEM--father told me it wouldn't.'
+
+'My priests do well,' said the Phoenix. 'Lead on.'
+
+'I don't know what to say,' said Cyril; and the Others said the same.
+
+'Ask for the High Priest,' said the Phoenix. 'Say that you have a
+secret to unfold that concerns my worship, and he will lead you to the
+innermost sanctuary.'
+
+So the children went in, all four of them, though they didn't like it,
+and stood in a large and beautiful hall adorned with Doulton tiles,
+like a large and beautiful bath with no water in it, and stately pillars
+supporting the roof. An unpleasing representation of the Phoenix in
+brown pottery disfigured one wall. There were counters and desks of
+mahogany and brass, and clerks bent over the desks and walked behind the
+counters. There was a great clock over an inner doorway.
+
+'Inquire for the High Priest,' whispered the Phoenix.
+
+An attentive clerk in decent black, who controlled his mouth but not his
+eyebrows, now came towards them. He leaned forward on the counter, and
+the children thought he was going to say, 'What can I have the pleasure
+of showing you?' like in a draper's; instead of which the young man
+said--
+
+'And what do YOU want?'
+
+'We want to see the High Priest.'
+
+'Get along with you,' said the young man.
+
+An elder man, also decent in black coat, advanced.
+
+'Perhaps it's Mr Blank' (not for worlds would I give the name). 'He's a
+Masonic High Priest, you know.'
+
+A porter was sent away to look for Mr Asterisk (I cannot give his name),
+and the children were left there to look on and be looked on by all
+the gentlemen at the mahogany desks. Anthea and Jane thought that they
+looked kind. The boys thought they stared, and that it was like their
+cheek.
+
+The porter returned with the news that Mr Dot Dash Dot (I dare not
+reveal his name) was out, but that Mr--
+
+Here a really delightful gentleman appeared. He had a beard and a kind
+and merry eye, and each one of the four knew at once that this was a man
+who had kiddies of his own and could understand what you were talking
+about. Yet it was a difficult thing to explain.
+
+'What is it?' he asked. 'Mr'--he named the name which I will never
+reveal--'is out. Can I do anything?'
+
+'Inner sanctuary,' murmured the Phoenix.
+
+'I beg your pardon,' said the nice gentleman, who thought it was Robert
+who had spoken.
+
+'We have something to tell you,' said Cyril, 'but'--he glanced at the
+porter, who was lingering much nearer than he need have done--'this is a
+very public place.'
+
+The nice gentleman laughed.
+
+'Come upstairs then,' he said, and led the way up a wide and beautiful
+staircase. Anthea says the stairs were of white marble, but I am not
+sure. On the corner-post of the stairs, at the top, was a beautiful
+image of the Phoenix in dark metal, and on the wall at each side was a
+flat sort of image of it.
+
+The nice gentleman led them into a room where the chairs, and even the
+tables, were covered with reddish leather. He looked at the children
+inquiringly.
+
+'Don't be frightened,' he said; 'tell me exactly what you want.'
+
+'May I shut the door?' asked Cyril.
+
+The gentleman looked surprised, but he shut the door.
+
+'Now,' said Cyril, firmly, 'I know you'll be awfully surprised, and
+you'll think it's not true and we are lunatics; but we aren't, and it
+is. Robert's got something inside his Norfolk--that's Robert, he's my
+young brother. Now don't be upset and have a fit or anything sir. Of
+course, I know when you called your shop the "Phoenix" you never thought
+there was one; but there is--and Robert's got it buttoned up against his
+chest!'
+
+'If it's an old curio in the form of a Phoenix, I dare say the Board--'
+said the nice gentleman, as Robert began to fumble with his buttons.
+
+'It's old enough,' said Anthea, 'going by what it says, but--'
+
+'My goodness gracious!' said the gentleman, as the Phoenix, with one
+last wriggle that melted into a flutter, got out of its nest in the
+breast of Robert and stood up on the leather-covered table.
+
+'What an extraordinarily fine bird!' he went on. 'I don't think I ever
+saw one just like it.'
+
+'I should think not,' said the Phoenix, with pardonable pride. And the
+gentleman jumped.
+
+'Oh, it's been taught to speak! Some sort of parrot, perhaps?'
+
+'I am,' said the bird, simply, 'the Head of your House, and I have come
+to my temple to receive your homage. I am no parrot'--its beak curved
+scornfully--'I am the one and only Phoenix, and I demand the homage of
+my High Priest.'
+
+'In the absence of our manager,' the gentleman began, exactly as though
+he were addressing a valued customer--'in the absence of our manager, I
+might perhaps be able--What am I saying?' He turned pale, and passed
+his hand across his brow. 'My dears,' he said, 'the weather is unusually
+warm for the time of year, and I don't feel quite myself. Do you know,
+for a moment I really thought that that remarkable bird of yours had
+spoken and said it was the Phoenix, and, what's more, that I'd believed
+it.'
+
+'So it did, sir,' said Cyril, 'and so did you.'
+
+'It really--Allow me.'
+
+A bell was rung. The porter appeared.
+
+'Mackenzie,' said the gentleman, 'you see that golden bird?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+The other breathed a sigh of relief.
+
+'It IS real, then?'
+
+'Yes, sir, of course, sir. You take it in your hand, sir,' said the
+porter, sympathetically, and reached out his hand to the Phoenix, who
+shrank back on toes curved with agitated indignation.
+
+'Forbear!' it cried; 'how dare you seek to lay hands on me?'
+
+The porter saluted.
+
+'Beg pardon, sir,' he said, 'I thought you was a bird.'
+
+'I AM a bird--THE bird--the Phoenix.'
+
+'Of course you are, sir,' said the porter. 'I see that the first minute,
+directly I got my breath, sir.'
+
+'That will do,' said the gentleman. 'Ask Mr Wilson and Mr Sterry to step
+up here for a moment, please.'
+
+Mr Sterry and Mr Wilson were in their turn overcome by
+amazement--quickly followed by conviction. To the surprise of the
+children every one in the office took the Phoenix at its word, and after
+the first shock of surprise it seemed to be perfectly natural to every
+one that the Phoenix should be alive, and that, passing through London,
+it should call at its temple.
+
+'We ought to have some sort of ceremony,' said the nicest
+gentleman, anxiously. 'There isn't time to summon the directors and
+shareholders--we might do that tomorrow, perhaps. Yes, the board-room
+would be best. I shouldn't like it to feel we hadn't done everything in
+our power to show our appreciation of its condescension in looking in on
+us in this friendly way.'
+
+The children could hardly believe their ears, for they had never thought
+that any one but themselves would believe in the Phoenix. And yet every
+one did; all the men in the office were brought in by twos and threes,
+and the moment the Phoenix opened its beak it convinced the cleverest
+of them, as well as those who were not so clever. Cyril wondered how the
+story would look in the papers next day. He seemed to see the posters in
+the streets:
+
+    PHOENIX FIRE OFFICE
+    THE PHOENIX AT ITS TEMPLE
+    MEETING TO WELCOME IT
+    DELIGHT OF THE MANAGER AND EVERYBODY.
+
+'Excuse our leaving you a moment,' said the nice gentleman, and he went
+away with the others; and through the half-closed door the children
+could hear the sound of many boots on stairs, the hum of excited voices
+explaining, suggesting, arguing, the thumpy drag of heavy furniture
+being moved about.
+
+The Phoenix strutted up and down the leather-covered table, looking over
+its shoulder at its pretty back.
+
+'You see what a convincing manner I have,' it said proudly.
+
+And now a new gentleman came in and said, bowing low--
+
+'Everything is prepared--we have done our best at so short a notice; the
+meeting--the ceremony--will be in the board-room. Will the Honourable
+Phoenix walk--it is only a few steps--or would it like to be--would it
+like some sort of conveyance?'
+
+'My Robert will bear me to the board-room, if that be the unlovely name
+of my temple's inmost court,' replied the bird.
+
+So they all followed the gentleman. There was a big table in the
+board-room, but it had been pushed right up under the long windows at
+one side, and chairs were arranged in rows across the room--like those
+you have at schools when there is a magic lantern on 'Our Eastern
+Empire', or on 'The Way We Do in the Navy'. The doors were of carved
+wood, very beautiful, with a carved Phoenix above. Anthea noticed that
+the chairs in the front rows were of the kind that her mother so loved
+to ask the price of in old furniture shops, and never could buy, because
+the price was always nearly twenty pounds each. On the mantelpiece were
+some heavy bronze candlesticks and a clock, and on the top of the clock
+was another image of the Phoenix.
+
+'Remove that effigy,' said the Phoenix to the gentlemen who were there,
+and it was hastily taken down. Then the Phoenix fluttered to the middle
+of the mantelpiece and stood there, looking more golden than ever. Then
+every one in the house and the office came in--from the cashier to the
+women who cooked the clerks' dinners in the beautiful kitchen at the top
+of the house. And every one bowed to the Phoenix and then sat down in a
+chair.
+
+'Gentlemen,' said the nicest gentleman, 'we have met here today--'
+
+The Phoenix was turning its golden beak from side to side.
+
+'I don't notice any incense,' it said, with an injured sniff. A hurried
+consultation ended in plates being fetched from the kitchen. Brown
+sugar, sealing-wax, and tobacco were placed on these, and something from
+a square bottle was poured over it all. Then a match was applied. It was
+the only incense that was handy in the Phoenix office, and it certainly
+burned very briskly and smoked a great deal.
+
+'We have met here today,' said the gentleman again, 'on an occasion
+unparalleled in the annals of this office. Our respected Phoenix--'
+
+'Head of the House,' said the Phoenix, in a hollow voice.
+
+'I was coming to that. Our respected Phoenix, the Head of this ancient
+House, has at length done us the honour to come among us. I think I may
+say, gentlemen, that we are not insensible to this honour, and that we
+welcome with no uncertain voice one whom we have so long desired to see
+in our midst.'
+
+Several of the younger clerks thought of saying 'Hear, hear,' but they
+feared it might seem disrespectful to the bird.
+
+'I will not take up your time,' the speaker went on, 'by recapitulating
+the advantages to be derived from a proper use of our system of fire
+insurance. I know, and you know, gentlemen, that our aim has ever been
+to be worthy of that eminent bird whose name we bear, and who now adorns
+our mantelpiece with his presence. Three cheers, gentlemen, for the
+winged Head of the House!'
+
+The cheers rose, deafening. When they had died away the Phoenix was
+asked to say a few words.
+
+It expressed in graceful phrases the pleasure it felt in finding itself
+at last in its own temple.
+
+'And,' it went on, 'You must not think me wanting in appreciation of
+your very hearty and cordial reception when I ask that an ode may be
+recited or a choric song sung. It is what I have always been accustomed
+to.'
+
+The four children, dumb witnesses of this wonderful scene, glanced a
+little nervously across the foam of white faces above the sea of black
+coats. It seemed to them that the Phoenix was really asking a little too
+much.
+
+'Time presses,' said the Phoenix, 'and the original ode of invocation is
+long, as well as being Greek; and, besides, it's no use invoking me when
+here I am; but is there not a song in your own tongue for a great day
+such as this?'
+
+Absently the manager began to sing, and one by one the rest joined--
+
+     'Absolute security!
+     No liability!
+     All kinds of property
+     insured against fire.
+     Terms most favourable,
+     Expenses reasonable,
+     Moderate rates for annual
+     Insurance.'
+
+'That one is NOT my favourite,' interrupted the Phoenix, 'and I think
+you've forgotten part of it.'
+
+The manager hastily began another--
+
+     'O Golden Phoenix, fairest bird,
+     The whole great world has often heard
+     Of all the splendid things we do,
+     Great Phoenix, just to honour you.'
+
+'That's better,' said the bird. And every one sang--
+
+     'Class one, for private dwelling-house,
+     For household goods and shops allows;
+     Provided these are built of brick
+     Or stone, and tiled and slated thick.'
+
+'Try another verse,' said the Phoenix, 'further on.'
+
+And again arose the voices of all the clerks and employees and managers
+and secretaries and cooks--
+
+    'In Scotland our insurance yields
+     The price of burnt-up stacks in fields.'
+
+'Skip that verse,' said the Phoenix.
+
+     'Thatched dwellings and their whole contents
+     We deal with--also with their rents;
+     Oh, glorious Phoenix, look and see
+     That these are dealt with in class three.
+
+     'The glories of your temple throng
+     Too thick to go in any song;
+     And we attend, O good and wise,
+     To "days of grace" and merchandise.
+
+     'When people's homes are burned away
+     They never have a cent to pay
+     If they have done as all should do,
+     O Phoenix, and have honoured you.
+
+     'So let us raise our voice and sing
+     The praises of the Phoenix King.
+     In classes one and two and three,
+     Oh, trust to him, for kind is he!'
+
+'I'm sure YOU'RE very kind,' said the Phoenix; 'and now we must be
+going. An thank you very much for a very pleasant time. May you all
+prosper as you deserve to do, for I am sure a nicer, pleasanter-spoken
+lot of temple attendants I have never met, and never wish to meet. I
+wish you all good-day!'
+
+It fluttered to the wrist of Robert and drew the four children from the
+room. The whole of the office staff followed down the wide stairs and
+filed into their accustomed places, and the two most important officials
+stood on the steps bowing till Robert had buttoned the golden bird in
+his Norfolk bosom, and it and he and the three other children were lost
+in the crowd.
+
+The two most important gentlemen looked at each other earnestly and
+strangely for a moment, and then retreated to those sacred inner rooms,
+where they toil without ceasing for the good of the House.
+
+And the moment they were all in their places--managers, secretaries,
+clerks, and porters--they all started, and each looked cautiously round
+to see if any one was looking at him. For each thought that he had
+fallen asleep for a few minutes, and had dreamed a very odd dream about
+the Phoenix and the board-room. And, of course, no one mentioned it
+to any one else, because going to sleep at your office is a thing you
+simply MUST NOT do.
+
+The extraordinary confusion of the board-room, with the remains of the
+incense in the plates, would have shown them at once that the visit of
+the Phoenix had been no dream, but a radiant reality, but no one went
+into the board-room again that day; and next day, before the office
+was opened, it was all cleaned and put nice and tidy by a lady whose
+business asking questions was not part of. That is why Cyril read
+the papers in vain on the next day and the day after that; because no
+sensible person thinks his dreams worth putting in the paper, and no one
+will ever own that he has been asleep in the daytime.
+
+The Phoenix was very pleased, but it decided to write an ode for itself.
+It thought the ones it had heard at its temple had been too hastily
+composed. Its own ode began--
+
+     'For beauty and for modest worth
+     The Phoenix has not its equal on earth.'
+
+And when the children went to bed that night it was still trying to cut
+down the last line to the proper length without taking out any of what
+it wanted to say.
+
+That is what makes poetry so difficult.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 6. DOING GOOD
+
+
+'We shan't be able to go anywhere on the carpet for a whole week,
+though,' said Robert.
+
+'And I'm glad of it,' said Jane, unexpectedly.
+
+'Glad?' said Cyril; 'GLAD?'
+
+It was breakfast-time, and mother's letter, telling them how they were
+all going for Christmas to their aunt's at Lyndhurst, and how father and
+mother would meet them there, having been read by every one, lay on the
+table, drinking hot bacon-fat with one corner and eating marmalade with
+the other.
+
+'Yes, glad,' said Jane. 'I don't want any more things to happen
+just now. I feel like you do when you've been to three parties in a
+week--like we did at granny's once--and extras in between, toys and
+chocs and things like that. I want everything to be just real, and no
+fancy things happening at all.' 'I don't like being obliged to keep
+things from mother,' said Anthea. 'I don't know why, but it makes me
+feel selfish and mean.'
+
+'If we could only get the mater to believe it, we might take her to the
+jolliest places,' said Cyril, thoughtfully. 'As it is, we've just got to
+be selfish and mean--if it is that--but I don't feel it is.'
+
+'I KNOW it isn't, but I FEEL it is,' said Anthea, 'and that's just as
+bad.'
+
+'It's worse,' said Robert; 'if you knew it and didn't feel it, it
+wouldn't matter so much.'
+
+'That's being a hardened criminal, father says,' put in Cyril, and he
+picked up mother's letter and wiped its corners with his handkerchief,
+to whose colour a trifle of bacon-fat and marmalade made but little
+difference.
+
+'We're going to-morrow, anyhow,' said Robert. 'Don't,' he added, with
+a good-boy expression on his face--'don't let's be ungrateful for our
+blessings; don't let's waste the day in saying how horrid it is to keep
+secrets from mother, when we all know Anthea tried all she knew to give
+her the secret, and she wouldn't take it. Let's get on the carpet and
+have a jolly good wish. You'll have time enough to repent of things all
+next week.'
+
+'Yes,' said Cyril, 'let's. It's not really wrong.'
+
+'Well, look here,' said Anthea. 'You know there's something about
+Christmas that makes you want to be good--however little you wish it at
+other times. Couldn't we wish the carpet to take us somewhere where we
+should have the chance to do some good and kind action? It would be an
+adventure just the same,' she pleaded.
+
+'I don't mind,' said Cyril. 'We shan't know where we're going, and
+that'll be exciting. No one knows what'll happen. We'd best put on our
+outers in case--'
+
+'We might rescue a traveller buried in the snow, like St Bernard dogs,
+with barrels round our necks,' said Jane, beginning to be interested.
+
+'Or we might arrive just in time to witness a will being signed--more
+tea, please,' said Robert, 'and we should see the old man hide it away
+in the secret cupboard; and then, after long years, when the rightful
+heir was in despair, we should lead him to the hidden panel and--'
+
+'Yes,' interrupted Anthea; 'or we might be taken to some freezing garret
+in a German town, where a poor little pale, sick child--'
+
+'We haven't any German money,' interrupted Cyril, 'so THAT'S no go. What
+I should like would be getting into the middle of a war and getting hold
+of secret intelligence and taking it to the general, and he would make
+me a lieutenant or a scout, or a hussar.'
+
+When breakfast was cleared away, Anthea swept the carpet, and the
+children sat down on it, together with the Phoenix, who had been
+especially invited, as a Christmas treat, to come with them and witness
+the good and kind action they were about to do.
+
+Four children and one bird were ready, and the wish was wished.
+
+Every one closed its eyes, so as to feel the topsy-turvy swirl of the
+carpet's movement as little as possible.
+
+When the eyes were opened again the children found themselves on the
+carpet, and the carpet was in its proper place on the floor of their own
+nursery at Camden Town.
+
+'I say,' said Cyril, 'here's a go!'
+
+'Do you think it's worn out? The wishing part of it, I mean?' Robert
+anxiously asked the Phoenix.
+
+'It's not that,' said the Phoenix; 'but--well--what did you wish--?'
+
+'Oh! I see what it means,' said Robert, with deep disgust; 'it's like
+the end of a fairy story in a Sunday magazine. How perfectly beastly!'
+
+'You mean it means we can do kind and good actions where we are? I see.
+I suppose it wants us to carry coals for the cook or make clothes
+for the bare heathens. Well, I simply won't. And the last day and
+everything. Look here!' Cyril spoke loudly and firmly. 'We want to go
+somewhere really interesting, where we have a chance of doing something
+good and kind; we don't want to do it here, but somewhere else. See?
+Now, then.'
+
+The obedient carpet started instantly, and the four children and one
+bird fell in a heap together, and as they fell were plunged in perfect
+darkness.
+
+'Are you all there?' said Anthea, breathlessly, through the black dark.
+Every one owned that it was there.
+
+'Where are we? Oh! how shivery and wet it is! Ugh!--oh!--I've put my
+hand in a puddle!'
+
+'Has any one got any matches?' said Anthea, hopelessly. She felt sure
+that no one would have any.
+
+It was then that Robert, with a radiant smile of triumph that was quite
+wasted in the darkness, where, of course, no one could see anything,
+drew out of his pocket a box of matches, struck a match and lighted a
+candle--two candles. And every one, with its mouth open, blinked at the
+sudden light.
+
+'Well done Bobs,' said his sisters, and even Cyril's natural brotherly
+feelings could not check his admiration of Robert's foresight.
+
+'I've always carried them about ever since the lone tower day,' said
+Robert, with modest pride. 'I knew we should want them some day. I kept
+the secret well, didn't I?'
+
+'Oh, yes,' said Cyril, with fine scorn. 'I found them the Sunday after,
+when I was feeling in your Norfolks for the knife you borrowed off me.
+But I thought you'd only sneaked them for Chinese lanterns, or reading
+in bed by.'
+
+'Bobs,' said Anthea, suddenly, 'do you know where we are? This is
+the underground passage, and look there--there's the money and the
+money-bags, and everything.'
+
+By this time the ten eyes had got used to the light of the candles, and
+no one could help seeing that Anthea spoke the truth.
+
+'It seems an odd place to do good and kind acts in, though,' said Jane.
+'There's no one to do them to.'
+
+'Don't you be too sure,' said Cyril; 'just round the next turning we
+might find a prisoner who has languished here for years and years, and
+we could take him out on our carpet and restore him to his sorrowing
+friends.'
+
+'Of course we could,' said Robert, standing up and holding the candle
+above his head to see further off; 'or we might find the bones of a
+poor prisoner and take them to his friends to be buried properly--that's
+always a kind action in books, though I never could see what bones
+matter.'
+
+'I wish you wouldn't,' said Jane.
+
+'I know exactly where we shall find the bones, too,' Robert went on.
+'You see that dark arch just along the passage? Well, just inside
+there--'
+
+'If you don't stop going on like that,' said Jane, firmly, 'I shall
+scream, and then I'll faint--so now then!'
+
+'And _I_ will, too,' said Anthea.
+
+Robert was not pleased at being checked in his flight of fancy.
+
+'You girls will never be great writers,' he said bitterly. 'They just
+love to think of things in dungeons, and chains, and knobbly bare human
+bones, and--'
+
+Jane had opened her mouth to scream, but before she could decide how you
+began when you wanted to faint, the golden voice of the Phoenix spoke
+through the gloom.
+
+'Peace!' it said; 'there are no bones here except the small but useful
+sets that you have inside you. And you did not invite me to come out
+with you to hear you talk about bones, but to see you do some good and
+kind action.'
+
+'We can't do it here,' said Robert, sulkily.
+
+'No,' rejoined the bird. 'The only thing we can do here, it seems, is to
+try to frighten our little sisters.'
+
+'He didn't, really, and I'm not so VERY little,' said Jane, rather
+ungratefully.
+
+Robert was silent. It was Cyril who suggested that perhaps they had
+better take the money and go.
+
+'That wouldn't be a kind act, except to ourselves; and it wouldn't be
+good, whatever way you look at it,' said Anthea, 'to take money that's
+not ours.'
+
+'We might take it and spend it all on benefits to the poor and aged,'
+said Cyril.
+
+'That wouldn't make it right to steal,' said Anthea, stoutly.
+
+'I don't know,' said Cyril. They were all standing up now. 'Stealing is
+taking things that belong to some one else, and there's no one else.'
+
+'It can't be stealing if--'
+
+'That's right,' said Robert, with ironical approval; 'stand here all day
+arguing while the candles burn out. You'll like it awfully when it's all
+dark again--and bony.'
+
+'Let's get out, then,' said Anthea. 'We can argue as we go.' So they
+rolled up the carpet and went. But when they had crept along to the
+place where the passage led into the topless tower they found the way
+blocked by a great stone, which they could not move.
+
+'There!' said Robert. 'I hope you're satisfied!'
+
+'Everything has two ends,' said the Phoenix, softly; 'even a quarrel or
+a secret passage.'
+
+So they turned round and went back, and Robert was made to go first with
+one of the candles, because he was the one who had begun to talk about
+bones. And Cyril carried the carpet.
+
+'I wish you hadn't put bones into our heads,' said Jane, as they went
+along.
+
+'I didn't; you always had them. More bones than brains,' said Robert.
+
+The passage was long, and there were arches and steps and turnings and
+dark alcoves that the girls did not much like passing. The passage ended
+in a flight of steps. Robert went up them.
+
+Suddenly he staggered heavily back on to the following feet of Jane, and
+everybody screamed, 'Oh! what is it?'
+
+'I've only bashed my head in,' said Robert, when he had groaned for some
+time; 'that's all. Don't mention it; I like it. The stairs just go right
+slap into the ceiling, and it's a stone ceiling. You can't do good and
+kind actions underneath a paving-stone.'
+
+'Stairs aren't made to lead just to paving-stones as a general rule,'
+said the Phoenix. 'Put your shoulder to the wheel.'
+
+'There isn't any wheel,' said the injured Robert, still rubbing his
+head.
+
+But Cyril had pushed past him to the top stair, and was already shoving
+his hardest against the stone above. Of course, it did not give in the
+least.
+
+'If it's a trap-door--' said Cyril. And he stopped shoving and began to
+feel about with his hands.
+
+'Yes, there is a bolt. I can't move it.'
+
+By a happy chance Cyril had in his pocket the oil-can of his father's
+bicycle; he put the carpet down at the foot of the stairs, and he lay
+on his back, with his head on the top step and his feet straggling down
+among his young relations, and he oiled the bolt till the drops of rust
+and oil fell down on his face. One even went into his mouth--open, as he
+panted with the exertion of keeping up this unnatural position. Then
+he tried again, but still the bolt would not move. So now he tied his
+handkerchief--the one with the bacon-fat and marmalade on it--to the
+bolt, and Robert's handkerchief to that, in a reef knot, which cannot
+come undone however much you pull, and, indeed, gets tighter and tighter
+the more you pull it. This must not be confused with a granny knot,
+which comes undone if you look at it. And then he and Robert pulled,
+and the girls put their arms round their brothers and pulled too, and
+suddenly the bolt gave way with a rusty scrunch, and they all rolled
+together to the bottom of the stairs--all but the Phoenix, which had
+taken to its wings when the pulling began.
+
+Nobody was hurt much, because the rolled-up carpet broke their fall; and
+now, indeed, the shoulders of the boys were used to some purpose, for
+the stone allowed them to heave it up. They felt it give; dust fell
+freely on them.
+
+'Now, then,' cried Robert, forgetting his head and his temper, 'push all
+together. One, two, three!'
+
+The stone was heaved up. It swung up on a creaking, unwilling hinge, and
+showed a growing oblong of dazzling daylight; and it fell back with a
+bang against something that kept it upright. Every one climbed out,
+but there was not room for every one to stand comfortably in the
+little paved house where they found themselves, so when the Phoenix had
+fluttered up from the darkness they let the stone down, and it closed
+like a trap-door, as indeed it was.
+
+You can have no idea how dusty and dirty the children were. Fortunately
+there was no one to see them but each other. The place they were in
+was a little shrine, built on the side of a road that went winding up
+through yellow-green fields to the topless tower. Below them were fields
+and orchards, all bare boughs and brown furrows, and little houses and
+gardens. The shrine was a kind of tiny chapel with no front wall--just a
+place for people to stop and rest in and wish to be good. So the Phoenix
+told them. There was an image that had once been brightly coloured, but
+the rain and snow had beaten in through the open front of the shrine,
+and the poor image was dull and weather-stained. Under it was written:
+'St Jean de Luz. Priez pour nous.' It was a sad little place, very
+neglected and lonely, and yet it was nice, Anthea thought, that poor
+travellers should come to this little rest-house in the hurry and worry
+of their journeyings and be quiet for a few minutes, and think about
+being good. The thought of St Jean de Luz--who had, no doubt, in his
+time, been very good and kind--made Anthea want more than ever to do
+something kind and good.
+
+'Tell us,' she said to the Phoenix, 'what is the good and kind action
+the carpet brought us here to do?'
+
+'I think it would be kind to find the owners of the treasure and tell
+them about it,' said Cyril.
+
+'And give it them ALL?' said Jane.
+
+'Yes. But whose is it?'
+
+'I should go to the first house and ask the name of the owner of the
+castle,' said the golden bird, and really the idea seemed a good one.
+
+They dusted each other as well as they could and went down the road. A
+little way on they found a tiny spring, bubbling out of the hillside and
+falling into a rough stone basin surrounded by draggled hart's-tongue
+ferns, now hardly green at all. Here the children washed their hands
+and faces and dried them on their pocket-handkerchiefs, which always,
+on these occasions, seem unnaturally small. Cyril's and Robert's
+handkerchiefs, indeed, rather undid the effects of the wash. But in
+spite of this the party certainly looked cleaner than before.
+
+The first house they came to was a little white house with green
+shutters and a slate roof. It stood in a prim little garden, and down
+each side of the neat path were large stone vases for flowers to grow
+in; but all the flowers were dead now.
+
+Along one side of the house was a sort of wide veranda, built of poles
+and trellis-work, and a vine crawled all over it. It was wider than our
+English verandas, and Anthea thought it must look lovely when the
+green leaves and the grapes were there; but now there were only dry,
+reddish-brown stalks and stems, with a few withered leaves caught in
+them.
+
+The children walked up to the front door. It was green and narrow. A
+chain with a handle hung beside it, and joined itself quite openly to a
+rusty bell that hung under the porch. Cyril had pulled the bell and
+its noisy clang was dying away before the terrible thought came to all.
+Cyril spoke it.
+
+'My hat!' he breathed. 'We don't know any French!'
+
+At this moment the door opened. A very tall, lean lady, with pale
+ringlets like whitey-brown paper or oak shavings, stood before them. She
+had an ugly grey dress and a black silk apron. Her eyes were small
+and grey and not pretty, and the rims were red, as though she had been
+crying.
+
+She addressed the party in something that sounded like a foreign
+language, and ended with something which they were sure was a question.
+Of course, no one could answer it.
+
+'What does she say?' Robert asked, looking down into the hollow of his
+jacket, where the Phoenix was nestling. But before the Phoenix could
+answer, the whitey-brown lady's face was lighted up by a most charming
+smile.
+
+'You--you ar-r-re fr-r-rom the England!' she cried. 'I love so much
+the England. Mais entrez--entrez donc tous! Enter, then--enter all. One
+essuyes his feet on the carpet.' She pointed to the mat.
+
+'We only wanted to ask--'
+
+'I shall say you all that what you wish,' said the lady. 'Enter only!'
+
+So they all went in, wiping their feet on a very clean mat, and putting
+the carpet in a safe corner of the veranda.
+
+'The most beautiful days of my life,' said the lady, as she shut the
+door, 'did pass themselves in England. And since long time I have not
+heard an English voice to repeal me the past.'
+
+This warm welcome embarrassed every one, but most the boys, for the
+floor of the hall was of such very clean red and white tiles, and
+the floor of the sitting-room so very shiny--like a black
+looking-glass--that each felt as though he had on far more boots than
+usual, and far noisier.
+
+There was a wood fire, very small and very bright, on the hearth--neat
+little logs laid on brass fire-dogs. Some portraits of powdered ladies
+and gentlemen hung in oval frames on the pale walls. There were silver
+candlesticks on the mantelpiece, and there were chairs and a table, very
+slim and polite, with slender legs. The room was extremely bare, but
+with a bright foreign bareness that was very cheerful, in an odd way of
+its own. At the end of the polished table a very un-English little boy
+sat on a footstool in a high-backed, uncomfortable-looking chair. He
+wore black velvet, and the kind of collar--all frills and lacey--that
+Robert would rather have died than wear; but then the little French boy
+was much younger than Robert.
+
+'Oh, how pretty!' said every one. But no one meant the little French
+boy, with the velvety short knickerbockers and the velvety short hair.
+
+What every one admired was a little, little Christmas-tree, very green,
+and standing in a very red little flower-pot, and hung round with very
+bright little things made of tinsel and coloured paper. There were tiny
+candles on the tree, but they were not lighted yet.
+
+'But yes--is it not that it is genteel?' said the lady. 'Sit down you
+then, and let us see.'
+
+The children sat down in a row on the stiff chairs against the wall, and
+the lady lighted a long, slim red taper at the wood flame, and then she
+drew the curtains and lit the little candles, and when they were all
+lighted the little French boy suddenly shouted, 'Bravo, ma tante! Oh,
+que c'est gentil,' and the English children shouted 'Hooray!'
+
+Then there was a struggle in the breast of Robert, and out fluttered the
+Phoenix--spread his gold wings, flew to the top of the Christmas-tree,
+and perched there.
+
+'Ah! catch it, then,' cried the lady; 'it will itself burn--your genteel
+parrakeet!'
+
+'It won't,' said Robert, 'thank you.'
+
+And the little French boy clapped his clean and tidy hands; but the lady
+was so anxious that the Phoenix fluttered down and walked up and down on
+the shiny walnut-wood table.
+
+'Is it that it talks?' asked the lady.
+
+And the Phoenix replied in excellent French. It said, 'Parfaitement,
+madame!'
+
+'Oh, the pretty parrakeet,' said the lady. 'Can it say still of other
+things?'
+
+And the Phoenix replied, this time in English, 'Why are you sad so near
+Christmas-time?'
+
+The children looked at it with one gasp of horror and surprise, for
+the youngest of them knew that it is far from manners to notice that
+strangers have been crying, and much worse to ask them the reason of
+their tears. And, of course, the lady began to cry again, very much
+indeed, after calling the Phoenix a bird without a heart; and she could
+not find her handkerchief, so Anthea offered hers, which was still very
+damp and no use at all. She also hugged the lady, and this seemed to be
+of more use than the handkerchief, so that presently the lady stopped
+crying, and found her own handkerchief and dried her eyes, and called
+Anthea a cherished angel.
+
+'I am sorry we came just when you were so sad,' said Anthea, 'but we
+really only wanted to ask you whose that castle is on the hill.'
+
+'Oh, my little angel,' said the poor lady, sniffing, 'to-day and for
+hundreds of years the castle is to us, to our family. To-morrow it must
+that I sell it to some strangers--and my little Henri, who ignores
+all, he will not have never the lands paternal. But what will you? His
+father, my brother--Mr the Marquis--has spent much of money, and it the
+must, despite the sentiments of familial respect, that I admit that my
+sainted father he also--'
+
+'How would you feel if you found a lot of money--hundreds and thousands
+of gold pieces?' asked Cyril.
+
+The lady smiled sadly.
+
+'Ah! one has already recounted to you the legend?' she said. 'It is
+true that one says that it is long time; oh! but long time, one of our
+ancestors has hid a treasure--of gold, and of gold, and of gold--enough
+to enrich my little Henri for the life. But all that, my children, it is
+but the accounts of fays--'
+
+'She means fairy stories,' whispered the Phoenix to Robert. 'Tell her
+what you have found.'
+
+So Robert told, while Anthea and Jane hugged the lady for fear she
+should faint for joy, like people in books, and they hugged her with the
+earnest, joyous hugs of unselfish delight.
+
+'It's no use explaining how we got in,' said Robert, when he had told
+of the finding of the treasure, 'because you would find it a little
+difficult to understand, and much more difficult to believe. But we can
+show you where the gold is and help you to fetch it away.'
+
+The lady looked doubtfully at Robert as she absently returned the hugs
+of the girls.
+
+'No, he's not making it up,' said Anthea; 'it's true, TRUE, TRUE!--and
+we are so glad.'
+
+'You would not be capable to torment an old woman?' she said; 'and it is
+not possible that it be a dream.'
+
+'It really IS true,' said Cyril; 'and I congratulate you very much.'
+
+His tone of studied politeness seemed to convince more than the raptures
+of the others.
+
+'If I do not dream,' she said, 'Henri come to Manon--and you--you shall
+come all with me to Mr the Curate. Is it not?'
+
+Manon was a wrinkled old woman with a red and yellow handkerchief
+twisted round her head. She took Henri, who was already sleepy with the
+excitement of his Christmas-tree and his visitors, and when the lady had
+put on a stiff black cape and a wonderful black silk bonnet and a pair
+of black wooden clogs over her black cashmere house-boots, the whole
+party went down the road to a little white house--very like the one they
+had left--where an old priest, with a good face, welcomed them with a
+politeness so great that it hid his astonishment.
+
+The lady, with her French waving hands and her shrugging French
+shoulders and her trembling French speech, told the story. And now the
+priest, who knew no English, shrugged HIS shoulders and waved HIS hands
+and spoke also in French.
+
+'He thinks,' whispered the Phoenix, 'that her troubles have turned her
+brain. What a pity you know no French!'
+
+'I do know a lot of French,' whispered Robert, indignantly; 'but it's
+all about the pencil of the gardener's son and the penknife of the
+baker's niece--nothing that anyone ever wants to say.'
+
+'If _I_ speak,' the bird whispered, 'he'll think HE'S mad, too.'
+
+'Tell me what to say.'
+
+'Say "C'est vrai, monsieur. Venez donc voir,"' said the Phoenix; and
+then Robert earned the undying respect of everybody by suddenly saying,
+very loudly and distinctly--
+
+'Say vray, mossoo; venny dong vwaw.'
+
+The priest was disappointed when he found that Robert's French began and
+ended with these useful words; but, at any rate, he saw that if the lady
+was mad she was not the only one, and he put on a big beavery hat, and
+got a candle and matches and a spade, and they all went up the hill to
+the wayside shrine of St John of Luz.
+
+'Now,' said Robert, 'I will go first and show you where it is.'
+
+So they prised the stone up with a corner of the spade, and Robert did
+go first, and they all followed and found the golden treasure exactly as
+they had left it. And every one was flushed with the joy of performing
+such a wonderfully kind action.
+
+Then the lady and the priest clasped hands and wept for joy, as French
+people do, and knelt down and touched the money, and talked very fast
+and both together, and the lady embraced all the children three times
+each, and called them 'little garden angels,' and then she and the
+priest shook each other by both hands again, and talked, and talked, and
+talked, faster and more Frenchy than you would have believed possible.
+And the children were struck dumb with joy and pleasure.
+
+'Get away NOW,' said the Phoenix softly, breaking in on the radiant
+dream.
+
+So the children crept away, and out through the little shrine, and the
+lady and the priest were so tearfully, talkatively happy that they never
+noticed that the guardian angels had gone.
+
+The 'garden angels' ran down the hill to the lady's little house, where
+they had left the carpet on the veranda, and they spread it out and
+said 'Home,' and no one saw them disappear, except little Henri, who
+had flattened his nose into a white button against the window-glass, and
+when he tried to tell his aunt she thought he had been dreaming. So that
+was all right.
+
+'It is much the best thing we've done,' said Anthea, when they talked
+it over at tea-time. 'In the future we'll only do kind actions with the
+carpet.'
+
+'Ahem!' said the Phoenix.
+
+'I beg your pardon?' said Anthea.
+
+'Oh, nothing,' said the bird. 'I was only thinking!'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 7. MEWS FROM PERSIA
+
+
+When you hear that the four children found themselves at Waterloo
+Station quite un-taken-care-of, and with no one to meet them, it may
+make you think that their parents were neither kind nor careful. But if
+you think this you will be wrong. The fact is, mother arranged with Aunt
+Emma that she was to meet the children at Waterloo, when they went back
+from their Christmas holiday at Lyndhurst. The train was fixed, but not
+the day. Then mother wrote to Aunt Emma, giving her careful instructions
+about the day and the hour, and about luggage and cabs and things, and
+gave the letter to Robert to post. But the hounds happened to meet near
+Rufus Stone that morning, and what is more, on the way to the meet they
+met Robert, and Robert met them, and instantly forgot all about posting
+Aunt Emma's letter, and never thought of it again until he and
+the others had wandered three times up and down the platform at
+Waterloo--which makes six in all--and had bumped against old gentlemen,
+and stared in the faces of ladies, and been shoved by people in a hurry,
+and 'by-your-leaved' by porters with trucks, and were quite, quite sure
+that Aunt Emma was not there. Then suddenly the true truth of what he
+had forgotten to do came home to Robert, and he said, 'Oh, crikey!' and
+stood still with his mouth open, and let a porter with a Gladstone bag
+in each hand and a bundle of umbrellas under one arm blunder heavily
+into him, and never so much as said, 'Where are you shoving to now?' or,
+'Look out where you're going, can't you?' The heavier bag smote him at
+the knee, and he staggered, but he said nothing.
+
+When the others understood what was the matter I think they told Robert
+what they thought of him.
+
+'We must take the train to Croydon,' said Anthea, 'and find Aunt Emma.'
+
+'Yes,' said Cyril, 'and precious pleased those Jevonses would be to see
+us and our traps.'
+
+Aunt Emma, indeed, was staying with some Jevonses--very prim people.
+They were middle-aged and wore very smart blouses, and they were fond of
+matinees and shopping, and they did not care about children.
+
+'I know MOTHER would be pleased to see us if we went back,' said Jane.
+
+'Yes, she would, but she'd think it was not right to show she was
+pleased, because it's Bob's fault we're not met. Don't I know the sort
+of thing?' said Cyril. 'Besides, we've no tin. No; we've got enough for
+a growler among us, but not enough for tickets to the New Forest. We
+must just go home. They won't be so savage when they find we've really
+got home all right. You know auntie was only going to take us home in a
+cab.'
+
+'I believe we ought to go to Croydon,' Anthea insisted.
+
+'Aunt Emma would be out to a dead cert,' said Robert. 'Those Jevonses go
+to the theatre every afternoon, I believe. Besides, there's the Phoenix
+at home, AND the carpet. I votes we call a four-wheeled cabman.'
+
+A four-wheeled cabman was called--his cab was one of the old-fashioned
+kind with straw in the bottom--and he was asked by Anthea to drive them
+very carefully to their address. This he did, and the price he asked
+for doing so was exactly the value of the gold coin grandpapa had given
+Cyril for Christmas. This cast a gloom; but Cyril would never have
+stooped to argue about a cab-fare, for fear the cabman should think he
+was not accustomed to take cabs whenever he wanted them. For a reason
+that was something like this he told the cabman to put the luggage
+on the steps, and waited till the wheels of the growler had grittily
+retired before he rang the bell.
+
+'You see,' he said, with his hand on the handle, 'we don't want cook
+and Eliza asking us before HIM how it is we've come home alone, as if we
+were babies.'
+
+Here he rang the bell; and the moment its answering clang was heard,
+every one felt that it would be some time before that bell was answered.
+The sound of a bell is quite different, somehow, when there is anyone
+inside the house who hears it. I can't tell you why that is--but so it
+is.
+
+'I expect they're changing their dresses,' said Jane.
+
+'Too late,' said Anthea, 'it must be past five. I expect Eliza's gone to
+post a letter, and cook's gone to see the time.'
+
+Cyril rang again. And the bell did its best to inform the listening
+children that there was really no one human in the house. They rang
+again and listened intently. The hearts of all sank low. It is a
+terrible thing to be locked out of your own house, on a dark, muggy
+January evening.
+
+'There is no gas on anywhere,' said Jane, in a broken voice.
+
+'I expect they've left the gas on once too often, and the draught blew
+it out, and they're suffocated in their beds. Father always said they
+would some day,' said Robert cheerfully.
+
+'Let's go and fetch a policeman,' said Anthea, trembling.
+
+'And be taken up for trying to be burglars--no, thank you,' said Cyril.
+'I heard father read out of the paper about a young man who got into his
+own mother's house, and they got him made a burglar only the other day.'
+
+'I only hope the gas hasn't hurt the Phoenix,' said Anthea. 'It said it
+wanted to stay in the bathroom cupboard, and I thought it would be all
+right, because the servants never clean that out. But if it's gone and
+got out and been choked by gas--And besides, directly we open the door
+we shall be choked, too. I KNEW we ought to have gone to Aunt Emma, at
+Croydon. Oh, Squirrel, I wish we had. Let's go NOW.'
+
+'Shut up,' said her brother, briefly. 'There's some one rattling the
+latch inside.' Every one listened with all its ears, and every one stood
+back as far from the door as the steps would allow.
+
+The latch rattled, and clicked. Then the flap of the letter-box lifted
+itself--every one saw it by the flickering light of the gas-lamp that
+shone through the leafless lime-tree by the gate--a golden eye seemed to
+wink at them through the letter-slit, and a cautious beak whispered--
+
+'Are you alone?'
+
+'It's the Phoenix,' said every one, in a voice so joyous, and so full of
+relief, as to be a sort of whispered shout.
+
+'Hush!' said the voice from the letter-box slit. 'Your slaves have gone
+a-merry-making. The latch of this portal is too stiff for my beak.
+But at the side--the little window above the shelf whereon your bread
+lies--it is not fastened.'
+
+'Righto!' said Cyril.
+
+And Anthea added, 'I wish you'd meet us there, dear Phoenix.'
+
+The children crept round to the pantry window. It is at the side of the
+house, and there is a green gate labelled 'Tradesmen's Entrance', which
+is always kept bolted. But if you get one foot on the fence between you
+and next door, and one on the handle of the gate, you are over before
+you know where you are. This, at least, was the experience of Cyril and
+Robert, and even, if the truth must be told, of Anthea and Jane. So in
+almost no time all four were in the narrow gravelled passage that runs
+between that house and the next.
+
+Then Robert made a back, and Cyril hoisted himself up and got his
+knicker-bockered knee on the concrete window-sill. He dived into the
+pantry head first, as one dives into water, and his legs waved in the
+air as he went, just as your legs do when you are first beginning
+to learn to dive. The soles of his boots--squarish muddy
+patches--disappeared.
+
+'Give me a leg up,' said Robert to his sisters.
+
+'No, you don't,' said Jane firmly. 'I'm not going to be left outside
+here with just Anthea, and have something creep up behind us out of the
+dark. Squirrel can go and open the back door.'
+
+A light had sprung awake in the pantry. Cyril always said the Phoenix
+turned the gas on with its beak, and lighted it with a waft of its wing;
+but he was excited at the time, and perhaps he really did it himself
+with matches, and then forgot all about it. He let the others in by the
+back door. And when it had been bolted again the children went all over
+the house and lighted every single gas-jet they could find. For they
+couldn't help feeling that this was just the dark dreary winter's
+evening when an armed burglar might easily be expected to appear at any
+moment. There is nothing like light when you are afraid of burglars--or
+of anything else, for that matter.
+
+And when all the gas-jets were lighted it was quite clear that the
+Phoenix had made no mistake, and that Eliza and cook were really out,
+and that there was no one in the house except the four children, and the
+Phoenix, and the carpet, and the blackbeetles who lived in the cupboards
+on each side of the nursery fire-place. These last were very pleased
+that the children had come home again, especially when Anthea had
+lighted the nursery fire. But, as usual, the children treated the loving
+little blackbeetles with coldness and disdain.
+
+I wonder whether you know how to light a fire? I don't mean how to
+strike a match and set fire to the corners of the paper in a fire
+someone has laid ready, but how to lay and light a fire all by yourself.
+I will tell you how Anthea did it, and if ever you have to light one
+yourself you may remember how it is done. First, she raked out the ashes
+of the fire that had burned there a week ago--for Eliza had actually
+never done this, though she had had plenty of time. In doing this Anthea
+knocked her knuckle and made it bleed. Then she laid the largest and
+handsomest cinders in the bottom of the grate. Then she took a sheet
+of old newspaper (you ought never to light a fire with to-day's
+newspaper--it will not burn well, and there are other reasons against
+it), and tore it into four quarters, and screwed each of these into a
+loose ball, and put them on the cinders; then she got a bundle of wood
+and broke the string, and stuck the sticks in so that their front ends
+rested on the bars, and the back ends on the back of the paper balls.
+In doing this she cut her finger slightly with the string, and when she
+broke it, two of the sticks jumped up and hit her on the cheek. Then she
+put more cinders and some bits of coal--no dust. She put most of that
+on her hands, but there seemed to be enough left for her face. Then
+she lighted the edges of the paper balls, and waited till she heard the
+fizz-crack-crack-fizz of the wood as it began to burn. Then she went and
+washed her hands and face under the tap in the back kitchen.
+
+Of course, you need not bark your knuckles, or cut your finger, or
+bruise your cheek with wood, or black yourself all over; but otherwise,
+this is a very good way to light a fire in London. In the real country
+fires are lighted in a different and prettier way.
+
+But it is always good to wash your hands and face afterwards, wherever
+you are.
+
+While Anthea was delighting the poor little blackbeetles with the
+cheerful blaze, Jane had set the table for--I was going to say tea, but
+the meal of which I am speaking was not exactly tea. Let us call it a
+tea-ish meal. There was tea, certainly, for Anthea's fire blazed and
+crackled so kindly that it really seemed to be affectionately inviting
+the kettle to come and sit upon its lap. So the kettle was brought and
+tea made. But no milk could be found--so every one had six lumps of
+sugar to each cup instead. The things to eat, on the other hand, were
+nicer than usual. The boys looked about very carefully, and found in
+the pantry some cold tongue, bread, butter, cheese, and part of a cold
+pudding--very much nicer than cook ever made when they were at home. And
+in the kitchen cupboard was half a Christmassy cake, a pot of strawberry
+jam, and about a pound of mixed candied fruit, with soft crumbly slabs
+of delicious sugar in each cup of lemon, orange, or citron.
+
+It was indeed, as Jane said, 'a banquet fit for an Arabian Knight.'
+
+The Phoenix perched on Robert's chair, and listened kindly and
+politely to all they had to tell it about their visit to Lyndhurst,
+and underneath the table, by just stretching a toe down rather far, the
+faithful carpet could be felt by all--even by Jane, whose legs were very
+short.
+
+'Your slaves will not return to-night,' said the Phoenix. 'They sleep
+under the roof of the cook's stepmother's aunt, who is, I gather,
+hostess to a large party to-night in honour of her husband's cousin's
+sister-in-law's mother's ninetieth birthday.'
+
+'I don't think they ought to have gone without leave,' said Anthea,
+'however many relations they have, or however old they are; but I
+suppose we ought to wash up.'
+
+'It's not our business about the leave,' said Cyril, firmly, 'but I
+simply won't wash up for them. We got it, and we'll clear it away; and
+then we'll go somewhere on the carpet. It's not often we get a chance
+of being out all night. We can go right away to the other side of the
+equator, to the tropical climes, and see the sun rise over the great
+Pacific Ocean.'
+
+'Right you are,' said Robert. 'I always did want to see the Southern
+Cross and the stars as big as gas-lamps.'
+
+'DON'T go,' said Anthea, very earnestly, 'because I COULDN'T. I'm SURE
+mother wouldn't like us to leave the house and I should hate to be left
+here alone.'
+
+'I'd stay with you,' said Jane loyally.
+
+'I know you would,' said Anthea gratefully, 'but even with you I'd much
+rather not.'
+
+'Well,' said Cyril, trying to be kind and amiable, 'I don't want you to
+do anything you think's wrong, BUT--'
+
+He was silent; this silence said many things.
+
+'I don't see,' Robert was beginning, when Anthea interrupted--
+
+'I'm quite sure. Sometimes you just think a thing's wrong, and sometimes
+you KNOW. And this is a KNOW time.'
+
+The Phoenix turned kind golden eyes on her and opened a friendly beak to
+say--
+
+'When it is, as you say, a "know time", there is no more to be said. And
+your noble brothers would never leave you.'
+
+'Of course not,' said Cyril rather quickly. And Robert said so too.
+
+'I myself,' the Phoenix went on, 'am willing to help in any way
+possible. I will go personally--either by carpet or on the wing--and
+fetch you anything you can think of to amuse you during the evening. In
+order to waste no time I could go while you wash up.--Why,' it went on
+in a musing voice, 'does one wash up teacups and wash down the stairs?'
+
+'You couldn't wash stairs up, you know,' said Anthea, 'unless you began
+at the bottom and went up feet first as you washed. I wish cook would
+try that way for a change.'
+
+'I don't,' said Cyril, briefly. 'I should hate the look of her
+elastic-side boots sticking up.'
+
+'This is mere trifling,' said the Phoenix. 'Come, decide what I shall
+fetch for you. I can get you anything you like.'
+
+But of course they couldn't decide. Many things were suggested--a
+rocking-horse, jewelled chessmen, an elephant, a bicycle, a motor-car,
+books with pictures, musical instruments, and many other things. But
+a musical instrument is agreeable only to the player, unless he has
+learned to play it really well; books are not sociable, bicycles cannot
+be ridden without going out of doors, and the same is true of motor-cars
+and elephants. Only two people can play chess at once with one set of
+chessmen (and anyway it's very much too much like lessons for a game),
+and only one can ride on a rocking-horse. Suddenly, in the midst of the
+discussion, the Phoenix spread its wings and fluttered to the floor, and
+from there it spoke.
+
+'I gather,' it said, 'from the carpet, that it wants you to let it go
+to its old home, where it was born and brought up, and it will return
+within the hour laden with a number of the most beautiful and delightful
+products of its native land.'
+
+'What IS its native land?'
+
+'I didn't gather. But since you can't agree, and time is passing, and
+the tea-things are not washed down--I mean washed up--'
+
+'I votes we do,' said Robert. 'It'll stop all this jaw, anyway. And it's
+not bad to have surprises. Perhaps it's a Turkey carpet, and it might
+bring us Turkish delight.'
+
+'Or a Turkish patrol,' said Robert.
+
+'Or a Turkish bath,' said Anthea.
+
+'Or a Turkish towel,' said Jane.
+
+'Nonsense,' Robert urged, 'it said beautiful and delightful, and towels
+and baths aren't THAT, however good they may be for you. Let it go. I
+suppose it won't give us the slip,' he added, pushing back his chair and
+standing up.
+
+'Hush!' said the Phoenix; 'how can you? Don't trample on its feelings
+just because it's only a carpet.'
+
+'But how can it do it--unless one of us is on it to do the wishing?'
+asked Robert. He spoke with a rising hope that it MIGHT be necessary for
+one to go and why not Robert? But the Phoenix quickly threw cold water
+on his new-born dream.
+
+'Why, you just write your wish on a paper, and pin it on the carpet.'
+
+So a leaf was torn from Anthea's arithmetic book, and on it Cyril wrote
+in large round-hand the following:
+
+
+We wish you to go to your dear native home, and bring back the most
+beautiful and delightful productions of it you can--and not to be gone
+long, please.
+
+                    (Signed)  CYRIL.
+                              ROBERT.
+                              ANTHEA.
+                              JANE.
+
+
+Then the paper was laid on the carpet.
+
+'Writing down, please,' said the Phoenix; 'the carpet can't read a paper
+whose back is turned to it, any more than you can.'
+
+It was pinned fast, and the table and chairs having been moved, the
+carpet simply and suddenly vanished, rather like a patch of water on a
+hearth under a fierce fire. The edges got smaller and smaller, and then
+it disappeared from sight.
+
+'It may take it some time to collect the beautiful and delightful
+things,' said the Phoenix. 'I should wash up--I mean wash down.'
+
+So they did. There was plenty of hot water left in the kettle, and every
+one helped--even the Phoenix, who took up cups by their handles with its
+clever claws and dipped them in the hot water, and then stood them on
+the table ready for Anthea to dry them. But the bird was rather slow,
+because, as it said, though it was not above any sort of honest work,
+messing about with dish-water was not exactly what it had been brought
+up to. Everything was nicely washed up, and dried, and put in its proper
+place, and the dish-cloth washed and hung on the edge of the copper
+to dry, and the tea-cloth was hung on the line that goes across the
+scullery. (If you are a duchess's child, or a king's, or a person of
+high social position's child, you will perhaps not know the difference
+between a dish-cloth and a tea-cloth; but in that case your nurse has
+been better instructed than you, and she will tell you all about it.)
+And just as eight hands and one pair of claws were being dried on the
+roller-towel behind the scullery door there came a strange sound from
+the other side of the kitchen wall--the side where the nursery was. It
+was a very strange sound, indeed--most odd, and unlike any other sounds
+the children had ever heard. At least, they had heard sounds as much
+like it as a toy engine's whistle is like a steam siren's.
+
+'The carpet's come back,' said Robert; and the others felt that he was
+right.
+
+'But what has it brought with it?' asked Jane. 'It sounds like
+Leviathan, that great beast.'
+
+'It couldn't have been made in India, and have brought elephants? Even
+baby ones would be rather awful in that room,' said Cyril. 'I vote we
+take it in turns to squint through the keyhole.'
+
+They did--in the order of their ages. The Phoenix, being the eldest by
+some thousands of years, was entitled to the first peep. But--
+
+'Excuse me,' it said, ruffling its golden feathers and sneezing softly;
+'looking through keyholes always gives me a cold in my golden eyes.'
+
+So Cyril looked.
+
+'I see something grey moving,' said he.
+
+'It's a zoological garden of some sort, I bet,' said Robert, when he had
+taken his turn. And the soft rustling, bustling, ruffling, scuffling,
+shuffling, fluffling noise went on inside.
+
+'_I_ can't see anything,' said Anthea, 'my eye tickles so.'
+
+Then Jane's turn came, and she put her eye to the keyhole.
+
+'It's a giant kitty-cat,' she said; 'and it's asleep all over the
+floor.'
+
+'Giant cats are tigers--father said so.'
+
+'No, he didn't. He said tigers were giant cats. It's not at all the same
+thing.'
+
+'It's no use sending the carpet to fetch precious things for you
+if you're afraid to look at them when they come,' said the Phoenix,
+sensibly. And Cyril, being the eldest, said--
+
+'Come on,' and turned the handle.
+
+The gas had been left full on after tea, and everything in the room
+could be plainly seen by the ten eyes at the door. At least, not
+everything, for though the carpet was there it was invisible, because it
+was completely covered by the hundred and ninety-nine beautiful objects
+which it had brought from its birthplace.
+
+'My hat!' Cyril remarked. 'I never thought about its being a PERSIAN
+carpet.'
+
+Yet it was now plain that it was so, for the beautiful objects which it
+had brought back were cats--Persian cats, grey Persian cats, and there
+were, as I have said, 199 of them, and they were sitting on the carpet
+as close as they could get to each other. But the moment the children
+entered the room the cats rose and stretched, and spread and overflowed
+from the carpet to the floor, and in an instant the floor was a sea of
+moving, mewing pussishness, and the children with one accord climbed to
+the table, and gathered up their legs, and the people next door knocked
+on the wall--and, indeed, no wonder, for the mews were Persian and
+piercing.
+
+'This is pretty poor sport,' said Cyril. 'What's the matter with the
+bounders?'
+
+'I imagine that they are hungry,' said the Phoenix. 'If you were to feed
+them--'
+
+'We haven't anything to feed them with,' said Anthea in despair, and she
+stroked the nearest Persian back. 'Oh, pussies, do be quiet--we can't
+hear ourselves think.'
+
+She had to shout this entreaty, for the mews were growing deafening,
+'and it would take pounds' and pounds' worth of cat's-meat.'
+
+'Let's ask the carpet to take them away,' said Robert. But the girls
+said 'No.'
+
+'They are so soft and pussy,' said Jane.
+
+'And valuable,' said Anthea, hastily. 'We can sell them for lots and
+lots of money.'
+
+'Why not send the carpet to get food for them?' suggested the Phoenix,
+and its golden voice came harsh and cracked with the effort it had to be
+make to be heard above the increasing fierceness of the Persian mews.
+
+So it was written that the carpet should bring food for 199 Persian
+cats, and the paper was pinned to the carpet as before.
+
+The carpet seemed to gather itself together, and the cats dropped off
+it, as raindrops do from your mackintosh when you shake it. And the
+carpet disappeared.
+
+Unless you have had one-hundred and ninety-nine well-grown Persian cats
+in one small room, all hungry, and all saying so in unmistakable mews,
+you can form but a poor idea of the noise that now deafened the children
+and the Phoenix. The cats did not seem to have been at all properly
+brought up. They seemed to have no idea of its being a mistake in
+manners to ask for meals in a strange house--let alone to howl for
+them--and they mewed, and they mewed, and they mewed, and they mewed,
+till the children poked their fingers into their ears and waited in
+silent agony, wondering why the whole of Camden Town did not come
+knocking at the door to ask what was the matter, and only hoping that
+the food for the cats would come before the neighbours did--and before
+all the secret of the carpet and the Phoenix had to be given away beyond
+recall to an indignant neighbourhood.
+
+The cats mewed and mewed and twisted their Persian forms in and out and
+unfolded their Persian tails, and the children and the Phoenix huddled
+together on the table.
+
+The Phoenix, Robert noticed suddenly, was trembling.
+
+'So many cats,' it said, 'and they might not know I was the Phoenix.
+These accidents happen so quickly. It quite un-mans me.'
+
+This was a danger of which the children had not thought.
+
+'Creep in,' cried Robert, opening his jacket.
+
+And the Phoenix crept in--only just in time, for green eyes had glared,
+pink noses had sniffed, white whiskers had twitched, and as Robert
+buttoned his coat he disappeared to the waist in a wave of eager grey
+Persian fur. And on the instant the good carpet slapped itself down on
+the floor. And it was covered with rats--three hundred and ninety-eight
+of them, I believe, two for each cat.
+
+'How horrible!' cried Anthea. 'Oh, take them away!'
+
+'Take yourself away,' said the Phoenix, 'and me.'
+
+'I wish we'd never had a carpet,' said Anthea, in tears.
+
+They hustled and crowded out of the door, and shut it, and locked it.
+Cyril, with great presence of mind, lit a candle and turned off the gas
+at the main.
+
+'The rats'll have a better chance in the dark,' he said.
+
+The mewing had ceased. Every one listened in breathless silence. We all
+know that cats eat rats--it is one of the first things we read in our
+little brown reading books; but all those cats eating all those rats--it
+wouldn't bear thinking of.
+
+Suddenly Robert sniffed, in the silence of the dark kitchen, where the
+only candle was burning all on one side, because of the draught.
+
+'What a funny scent!' he said.
+
+And as he spoke, a lantern flashed its light through the window of the
+kitchen, a face peered in, and a voice said--
+
+'What's all this row about? You let me in.'
+
+It was the voice of the police!
+
+Robert tip-toed to the window, and spoke through the pane that had
+been a little cracked since Cyril accidentally knocked it with a
+walking-stick when he was playing at balancing it on his nose. (It was
+after they had been to a circus.)
+
+'What do you mean?' he said. 'There's no row. You listen; everything's
+as quiet as quiet.' And indeed it was.
+
+The strange sweet scent grew stronger, and the Phoenix put out its beak.
+
+The policeman hesitated.
+
+'They're MUSK-rats,' said the Phoenix. 'I suppose some cats eat
+them--but never Persian ones. What a mistake for a well-informed carpet
+to make! Oh, what a night we're having!'
+
+'Do go away,' said Robert, nervously. 'We're just going to bed--that's
+our bedroom candle; there isn't any row. Everything's as quiet as a
+mouse.'
+
+A wild chorus of mews drowned his words, and with the mews were mingled
+the shrieks of the musk-rats. What had happened? Had the cats tasted
+them before deciding that they disliked the flavour?
+
+'I'm a-coming in,' said the policeman. 'You've got a cat shut up there.'
+
+'A cat,' said Cyril. 'Oh, my only aunt! A cat!'
+
+'Come in, then,' said Robert. 'It's your own look out. I advise you not.
+Wait a shake, and I'll undo the side gate.'
+
+He undid the side gate, and the policeman, very cautiously, came in. And
+there in the kitchen, by the light of one candle, with the mewing
+and the screaming going like a dozen steam sirens, twenty waiting on
+motor-cars, and half a hundred squeaking pumps, four agitated voices
+shouted to the policeman four mixed and wholly different explanations of
+the very mixed events of the evening.
+
+Did you ever try to explain the simplest thing to a policeman?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 8. THE CATS, THE COW, AND THE BURGLAR
+
+The nursery was full of Persian cats and musk-rats that had been brought
+there by the wishing carpet. The cats were mewing and the musk-rats were
+squeaking so that you could hardly hear yourself speak. In the kitchen
+were the four children, one candle, a concealed Phoenix, and a very
+visible policeman.
+
+'Now then, look here,' said the Policeman, very loudly, and he pointed
+his lantern at each child in turn, 'what's the meaning of this here
+yelling and caterwauling. I tell you you've got a cat here, and some
+one's a ill-treating of it. What do you mean by it, eh?'
+
+It was five to one, counting the Phoenix; but the policeman, who was
+one, was of unusually fine size, and the five, including the Phoenix,
+were small. The mews and the squeaks grew softer, and in the comparative
+silence, Cyril said--
+
+'It's true. There are a few cats here. But we've not hurt them. It's
+quite the opposite. We've just fed them.'
+
+'It don't sound like it,' said the policeman grimly.
+
+'I daresay they're not REAL cats,' said Jane madly, perhaps they're only
+dream-cats.'
+
+'I'll dream-cat you, my lady,' was the brief response of the force.
+
+'If you understood anything except people who do murders and stealings
+and naughty things like that, I'd tell you all about it,' said Robert;
+'but I'm certain you don't. You're not meant to shove your oar into
+people's private cat-keepings. You're only supposed to interfere when
+people shout "murder" and "stop thief" in the street. So there!'
+
+The policeman assured them that he should see about that; and at this
+point the Phoenix, who had been making itself small on the pot-shelf
+under the dresser, among the saucepan lids and the fish-kettle, walked
+on tip-toed claws in a noiseless and modest manner, and left the room
+unnoticed by any one.
+
+'Oh, don't be so horrid,' Anthea was saying, gently and earnestly. 'We
+LOVE cats--dear pussy-soft things. We wouldn't hurt them for worlds.
+Would we, Pussy?'
+
+And Jane answered that of course they wouldn't. And still the policeman
+seemed unmoved by their eloquence.
+
+'Now, look here,' he said, 'I'm a-going to see what's in that room
+beyond there, and--'
+
+His voice was drowned in a wild burst of mewing and squeaking. And as
+soon as it died down all four children began to explain at once; and
+though the squeaking and mewing were not at their very loudest, yet
+there was quite enough of both to make it very hard for the policeman
+to understand a single word of any of the four wholly different
+explanations now poured out to him.
+
+'Stow it,' he said at last. 'I'm a-goin' into the next room in the
+execution of my duty. I'm a-goin' to use my eyes--my ears have gone off
+their chumps, what with you and them cats.'
+
+And he pushed Robert aside, and strode through the door.
+
+'Don't say I didn't warn you,' said Robert.
+
+'It's tigers REALLY,' said Jane. 'Father said so. I wouldn't go in, if I
+were you.'
+
+But the policeman was quite stony; nothing any one said seemed to make
+any difference to him. Some policemen are like this, I believe. He
+strode down the passage, and in another moment he would have been in the
+room with all the cats and all the rats (musk), but at that very instant
+a thin, sharp voice screamed from the street outside--
+
+'Murder--murder! Stop thief!'
+
+The policeman stopped, with one regulation boot heavily poised in the
+air.
+
+'Eh?' he said.
+
+And again the shrieks sounded shrilly and piercingly from the dark
+street outside.
+
+'Come on,' said Robert. 'Come and look after cats while somebody's being
+killed outside.' For Robert had an inside feeling that told him quite
+plainly WHO it was that was screaming.
+
+'You young rip,' said the policeman, 'I'll settle up with you bimeby.'
+
+And he rushed out, and the children heard his boots going weightily
+along the pavement, and the screams also going along, rather ahead of
+the policeman; and both the murder-screams and the policeman's boots
+faded away in the remote distance.
+
+Then Robert smacked his knickerbocker loudly with his palm, and said--
+
+'Good old Phoenix! I should know its golden voice anywhere.'
+
+And then every one understood how cleverly the Phoenix had caught at
+what Robert had said about the real work of a policeman being to look
+after murderers and thieves, and not after cats, and all hearts were
+filled with admiring affection.
+
+'But he'll come back,' said Anthea, mournfully, 'as soon as it finds the
+murderer is only a bright vision of a dream, and there isn't one at all
+really.'
+
+'No he won't,' said the soft voice of the clever Phoenix, as it flew
+in. 'HE DOES NOT KNOW WHERE YOUR HOUSE IS. I heard him own as much to a
+fellow mercenary. Oh! what a night we are having! Lock the door, and let
+us rid ourselves of this intolerable smell of the perfume peculiar
+to the musk-rat and to the house of the trimmers of beards. If you'll
+excuse me, I will go to bed. I am worn out.'
+
+It was Cyril who wrote the paper that told the carpet to take away the
+rats and bring milk, because there seemed to be no doubt in any breast
+that, however Persian cats may be, they must like milk.
+
+'Let's hope it won't be musk-milk,' said Anthea, in gloom, as she pinned
+the paper face-downwards on the carpet. 'Is there such a thing as a
+musk-cow?' she added anxiously, as the carpet shrivelled and vanished.
+'I do hope not. Perhaps really it WOULD have been wiser to let the
+carpet take the cats away. It's getting quite late, and we can't keep
+them all night.'
+
+'Oh, can't we?' was the bitter rejoinder of Robert, who had been
+fastening the side door. 'You might have consulted me,' he went on. 'I'm
+not such an idiot as some people.'
+
+'Why, whatever--'
+
+'Don't you see? We've jolly well GOT to keep the cats all night--oh, get
+down, you furry beasts!--because we've had three wishes out of the old
+carpet now, and we can't get any more till to-morrow.'
+
+The liveliness of Persian mews alone prevented the occurrence of a
+dismal silence.
+
+Anthea spoke first.
+
+'Never mind,' she said. 'Do you know, I really do think they're quieting
+down a bit. Perhaps they heard us say milk.'
+
+'They can't understand English,' said Jane. 'You forget they're Persian
+cats, Panther.'
+
+'Well,' said Anthea, rather sharply, for she was tired and anxious, 'who
+told you "milk" wasn't Persian for milk. Lots of English words are
+just the same in French--at least I know "miaw" is, and "croquet", and
+"fiance". Oh, pussies, do be quiet! Let's stroke them as hard as we can
+with both hands, and perhaps they'll stop.'
+
+So every one stroked grey fur till their hands were tired, and as soon
+as a cat had been stroked enough to make it stop mewing it was pushed
+gently away, and another mewing mouser was approached by the hands of
+the strokers. And the noise was really more than half purr when the
+carpet suddenly appeared in its proper place, and on it, instead of rows
+of milk-cans, or even of milk-jugs, there was a COW. Not a Persian cow,
+either, nor, most fortunately, a musk-cow, if there is such a thing, but
+a smooth, sleek, dun-coloured Jersey cow, who blinked large soft eyes at
+the gas-light and mooed in an amiable if rather inquiring manner.
+
+Anthea had always been afraid of cows; but now she tried to be brave.
+
+'Anyway, it can't run after me,' she said to herself 'There isn't room
+for it even to begin to run.'
+
+The cow was perfectly placid. She behaved like a strayed duchess till
+some one brought a saucer for the milk, and some one else tried to milk
+the cow into it. Milking is very difficult. You may think it is easy,
+but it is not. All the children were by this time strung up to a pitch
+of heroism that would have been impossible to them in their ordinary
+condition. Robert and Cyril held the cow by the horns; and Jane, when
+she was quite sure that their end of the cow was quite secure, consented
+to stand by, ready to hold the cow by the tail should occasion arise.
+Anthea, holding the saucer, now advanced towards the cow. She remembered
+to have heard that cows, when milked by strangers, are susceptible to
+the soothing influence of the human voice. So, clutching her saucer very
+tight, she sought for words to whose soothing influence the cow might be
+susceptible. And her memory, troubled by the events of the night, which
+seemed to go on and on for ever and ever, refused to help her with any
+form of words suitable to address a Jersey cow in.
+
+'Poor pussy, then. Lie down, then, good dog, lie down!' was all that she
+could think of to say, and she said it.
+
+And nobody laughed. The situation, full of grey mewing cats, was too
+serious for that. Then Anthea, with a beating heart, tried to milk the
+cow. Next moment the cow had knocked the saucer out of her hand and
+trampled on it with one foot, while with the other three she had walked
+on a foot each of Robert, Cyril, and Jane.
+
+Jane burst into tears. 'Oh, how much too horrid everything is!' she
+cried. 'Come away. Let's go to bed and leave the horrid cats with the
+hateful cow. Perhaps somebody will eat somebody else. And serve them
+right.'
+
+They did not go to bed, but they had a shivering council in the
+drawing-room, which smelt of soot--and, indeed, a heap of this lay in
+the fender. There had been no fire in the room since mother went
+away, and all the chairs and tables were in the wrong places, and the
+chrysanthemums were dead, and the water in the pot nearly dried up.
+Anthea wrapped the embroidered woolly sofa blanket round Jane and
+herself, while Robert and Cyril had a struggle, silent and brief, but
+fierce, for the larger share of the fur hearthrug.
+
+'It is most truly awful,' said Anthea, 'and I am so tired. Let's let the
+cats loose.'
+
+'And the cow, perhaps?' said Cyril. 'The police would find us at once.
+That cow would stand at the gate and mew--I mean moo--to come in. And so
+would the cats. No; I see quite well what we've got to do. We must
+put them in baskets and leave them on people's doorsteps, like orphan
+foundlings.'
+
+'We've got three baskets, counting mother's work one,' said Jane
+brightening.
+
+'And there are nearly two hundred cats,' said Anthea, 'besides the
+cow--and it would have to be a different-sized basket for her; and then
+I don't know how you'd carry it, and you'd never find a doorstep big
+enough to put it on. Except the church one--and--'
+
+'Oh, well,' said Cyril, 'if you simply MAKE difficulties--'
+
+'I'm with you,' said Robert. 'Don't fuss about the cow, Panther. It's
+simply GOT to stay the night, and I'm sure I've read that the cow is a
+remunerating creature, and that means it will sit still and think
+for hours. The carpet can take it away in the morning. And as for the
+baskets, we'll do them up in dusters, or pillow-cases, or bath-towels.
+Come on, Squirrel. You girls can be out of it if you like.'
+
+His tone was full of contempt, but Jane and Anthea were too tired and
+desperate to care; even being 'out of it', which at other times they
+could not have borne, now seemed quite a comfort. They snuggled down in
+the sofa blanket, and Cyril threw the fur hearthrug over them.
+
+'Ah, he said, 'that's all women are fit for--to keep safe and warm,
+while the men do the work and run dangers and risks and things.'
+
+'I'm not,' said Anthea, 'you know I'm not.' But Cyril was gone.
+
+It was warm under the blanket and the hearthrug, and Jane snuggled up
+close to her sister; and Anthea cuddled Jane closely and kindly, and in
+a sort of dream they heard the rise of a wave of mewing as Robert opened
+the door of the nursery. They heard the booted search for baskets in
+the back kitchen. They heard the side door open and close, and they
+knew that each brother had gone out with at least one cat. Anthea's
+last thought was that it would take at least all night to get rid of
+one hundred and ninety-nine cats by twos. There would be ninety-nine
+journeys of two cats each, and one cat over.
+
+'I almost think we might keep the one cat over,' said Anthea. 'I don't
+seem to care for cats just now, but I daresay I shall again some day.'
+And she fell asleep. Jane also was sleeping.
+
+It was Jane who awoke with a start, to find Anthea still asleep. As, in
+the act of awakening, she kicked her sister, she wondered idly why
+they should have gone to bed in their boots; but the next moment she
+remembered where they were.
+
+There was a sound of muffled, shuffled feet on the stairs. Like the
+heroine of the classic poem, Jane 'thought it was the boys', and as
+she felt quite wide awake, and not nearly so tired as before, she crept
+gently from Anthea's side and followed the footsteps. They went down
+into the basement; the cats, who seemed to have fallen into the sleep
+of exhaustion, awoke at the sound of the approaching footsteps and mewed
+piteously. Jane was at the foot of the stairs before she saw it was not
+her brothers whose coming had roused her and the cats, but a burglar.
+She knew he was a burglar at once, because he wore a fur cap and a red
+and black charity-check comforter, and he had no business where he was.
+
+If you had been stood in jane's shoes you would no doubt have run away
+in them, appealing to the police and neighbours with horrid screams. But
+Jane knew better. She had read a great many nice stories about burglars,
+as well as some affecting pieces of poetry, and she knew that no burglar
+will ever hurt a little girl if he meets her when burgling. Indeed, in
+all the cases Jane had read of, his burglarishness was almost at once
+forgotten in the interest he felt in the little girl's artless prattle.
+So if Jane hesitated for a moment before addressing the burglar, it
+was only because she could not at once think of any remark sufficiently
+prattling and artless to make a beginning with. In the stories and the
+affecting poetry the child could never speak plainly, though it always
+looked old enough to in the pictures. And Jane could not make up her
+mind to lisp and 'talk baby', even to a burglar. And while she hesitated
+he softly opened the nursery door and went in.
+
+Jane followed--just in time to see him sit down flat on the floor,
+scattering cats as a stone thrown into a pool splashes water.
+
+She closed the door softly and stood there, still wondering whether she
+COULD bring herself to say, 'What's 'oo doing here, Mithter Wobber?' and
+whether any other kind of talk would do.
+
+Then she heard the burglar draw a long breath, and he spoke.
+
+'It's a judgement,' he said, 'so help me bob if it ain't. Oh, 'ere's a
+thing to 'appen to a chap! Makes it come 'ome to you, don't it neither?
+Cats an' cats an' cats. There couldn't be all them cats. Let alone the
+cow. If she ain't the moral of the old man's Daisy. She's a dream out of
+when I was a lad--I don't mind 'er so much. 'Ere, Daisy, Daisy?'
+
+The cow turned and looked at him.
+
+'SHE'S all right,' he went on. 'Sort of company, too. Though them above
+knows how she got into this downstairs parlour. But them cats--oh, take
+'em away, take 'em away! I'll chuck the 'ole show--Oh, take 'em away.'
+
+'Burglar,' said Jane, close behind him, and he started convulsively,
+and turned on her a blank face, whose pale lips trembled. 'I can't take
+those cats away.'
+
+'Lor' lumme!' exclaimed the man; 'if 'ere ain't another on 'em. Are you
+real, miss, or something I'll wake up from presently?'
+
+'I am quite real,' said Jane, relieved to find that a lisp was not
+needed to make the burglar understand her. 'And so,' she added, 'are the
+cats.'
+
+'Then send for the police, send for the police, and I'll go quiet. If
+you ain't no realler than them cats, I'm done, spunchuck--out of time.
+Send for the police. I'll go quiet. One thing, there'd not be room for
+'arf them cats in no cell as ever _I_ see.'
+
+He ran his fingers through his hair, which was short, and his eyes
+wandered wildly round the roomful of cats.
+
+'Burglar,' said Jane, kindly and softly, 'if you didn't like cats, what
+did you come here for?'
+
+'Send for the police,' was the unfortunate criminal's only reply. 'I'd
+rather you would--honest, I'd rather.'
+
+'I daren't,' said Jane, 'and besides, I've no one to send. I hate the
+police. I wish he'd never been born.'
+
+'You've a feeling 'art, miss,' said the burglar; 'but them cats is
+really a little bit too thick.'
+
+'Look here,' said Jane, 'I won't call the police. And I am quite a real
+little girl, though I talk older than the kind you've met before when
+you've been doing your burglings. And they are real cats--and they want
+real milk--and--Didn't you say the cow was like somebody's Daisy that
+you used to know?'
+
+'Wish I may die if she ain't the very spit of her,' replied the man.
+
+'Well, then,' said Jane--and a thrill of joyful pride ran through
+her--'perhaps you know how to milk cows?'
+
+'Perhaps I does,' was the burglar's cautious rejoinder.
+
+'Then,' said Jane, 'if you will ONLY milk ours--you don't know how we
+shall always love you.'
+
+The burglar replied that loving was all very well.
+
+'If those cats only had a good long, wet, thirsty drink of milk,' Jane
+went on with eager persuasion, 'they'd lie down and go to sleep as
+likely as not, and then the police won't come back. But if they go on
+mewing like this he will, and then I don't know what'll become of us, or
+you either.'
+
+This argument seemed to decide the criminal. Jane fetched the wash-bowl
+from the sink, and he spat on his hands and prepared to milk the cow. At
+this instant boots were heard on the stairs.
+
+'It's all up,' said the man, desperately, 'this 'ere's a plant. 'ERE'S
+the police.' He made as if to open the window and leap from it.
+
+'It's all right, I tell you,' whispered Jane, in anguish. 'I'll say
+you're a friend of mine, or the good clergyman called in, or my uncle,
+or ANYTHING--only do, do, do milk the cow. Oh, DON'T go--oh--oh, thank
+goodness it's only the boys!'
+
+It was; and their entrance had awakened Anthea, who, with her brothers,
+now crowded through the doorway. The man looked about him like a rat
+looks round a trap.
+
+'This is a friend of mine,' said Jane; 'he's just called in, and he's
+going to milk the cow for us. ISN'T it good and kind of him?'
+
+She winked at the others, and though they did not understand they played
+up loyally.
+
+'How do?' said Cyril, 'Very glad to meet you. Don't let us interrupt the
+milking.'
+
+'I shall 'ave a 'ead and a 'arf in the morning, and no bloomin' error,'
+remarked the burglar; but he began to milk the cow.
+
+Robert was winked at to stay and see that he did not leave off milking
+or try to escape, and the others went to get things to put the milk in;
+for it was now spurting and foaming in the wash-bowl, and the cats had
+ceased from mewing and were crowding round the cow, with expressions of
+hope and anticipation on their whiskered faces.
+
+'We can't get rid of any more cats,' said Cyril, as he and his sisters
+piled a tray high with saucers and soup-plates and platters and
+pie-dishes, 'the police nearly got us as it was. Not the same one--a
+much stronger sort. He thought it really was a foundling orphan we'd
+got. If it hadn't been for me throwing the two bags of cat slap in
+his eye and hauling Robert over a railing, and lying like mice under
+a laurel-bush--Well, it's jolly lucky I'm a good shot, that's all.
+He pranced off when he'd got the cat-bags off his face--thought we'd
+bolted. And here we are.'
+
+The gentle samishness of the milk swishing into the hand-bowl seemed
+to have soothed the burglar very much. He went on milking in a sort of
+happy dream, while the children got a cap and ladled the warm milk out
+into the pie-dishes and plates, and platters and saucers, and set them
+down to the music of Persian purrs and lappings.
+
+'It makes me think of old times,' said the burglar, smearing his ragged
+coat-cuff across his eyes--'about the apples in the orchard at home,
+and the rats at threshing time, and the rabbits and the ferrets, and how
+pretty it was seeing the pigs killed.'
+
+Finding him in this softened mood, Jane said--
+
+'I wish you'd tell us how you came to choose our house for your
+burglaring to-night. I am awfully glad you did. You have been so kind. I
+don't know what we should have done without you,' she added hastily. 'We
+all love you ever so. Do tell us.'
+
+The others added their affectionate entreaties, and at last the burglar
+said--
+
+'Well, it's my first job, and I didn't expect to be made so welcome, and
+that's the truth, young gents and ladies. And I don't know but what it
+won't be my last. For this 'ere cow, she reminds me of my father, and I
+know 'ow 'e'd 'ave 'ided me if I'd laid 'ands on a 'a'penny as wasn't my
+own.'
+
+'I'm sure he would,' Jane agreed kindly; 'but what made you come here?'
+
+'Well, miss,' said the burglar, 'you know best 'ow you come by them
+cats, and why you don't like the police, so I'll give myself away free,
+and trust to your noble 'earts. (You'd best bale out a bit, the pan's
+getting fullish.) I was a-selling oranges off of my barrow--for I ain't
+a burglar by trade, though you 'ave used the name so free--an' there was
+a lady bought three 'a'porth off me. An' while she was a-pickin' of them
+out--very careful indeed, and I'm always glad when them sort gets a few
+over-ripe ones--there was two other ladies talkin' over the fence. An'
+one on 'em said to the other on 'em just like this--
+
+"'I've told both gells to come, and they can doss in with M'ria and
+Jane, 'cause their boss and his missis is miles away and the kids too.
+So they can just lock up the 'ouse and leave the gas a-burning, so's
+no one won't know, and get back bright an' early by 'leven o'clock. And
+we'll make a night of it, Mrs Prosser, so we will. I'm just a-going
+to run out to pop the letter in the post." And then the lady what had
+chosen the three ha'porth so careful, she said: "Lor, Mrs Wigson, I
+wonder at you, and your hands all over suds. This good gentleman'll slip
+it into the post for yer, I'll be bound, seeing I'm a customer of his."
+So they give me the letter, and of course I read the direction what was
+written on it afore I shoved it into the post. And then when I'd sold
+my barrowful, I was a-goin' 'ome with the chink in my pocket, and I'm
+blowed if some bloomin' thievin' beggar didn't nick the lot whilst I was
+just a-wettin' of my whistle, for callin' of oranges is dry work. Nicked
+the bloomin' lot 'e did--and me with not a farden to take 'ome to my
+brother and his missus.'
+
+'How awful!' said Anthea, with much sympathy.
+
+'Horful indeed, miss, I believe yer,' the burglar rejoined, with deep
+feeling. 'You don't know her temper when she's roused. An' I'm sure I
+'ope you never may, neither. And I'd 'ad all my oranges off of 'em.
+So it came back to me what was wrote on the ongverlope, and I says to
+myself, "Why not, seein' as I've been done myself, and if they keeps two
+slaveys there must be some pickings?" An' so 'ere I am. But them cats,
+they've brought me back to the ways of honestness. Never no more.'
+
+'Look here,' said Cyril, 'these cats are very valuable--very indeed. And
+we will give them all to you, if only you will take them away.'
+
+'I see they're a breedy lot,' replied the burglar. 'But I don't want no
+bother with the coppers. Did you come by them honest now? Straight?'
+
+'They are all our very own,' said Anthea, 'we wanted them, but the
+confidement--'
+
+'Consignment,' whispered Cyril, 'was larger than we wanted, and they're
+an awful bother. If you got your barrow, and some sacks or baskets, your
+brother's missus would be awfully pleased. My father says Persian cats
+are worth pounds and pounds each.'
+
+'Well,' said the burglar--and he was certainly moved by her remarks--'I
+see you're in a hole--and I don't mind lending a helping 'and. I don't
+ask 'ow you come by them. But I've got a pal--'e's a mark on cats. I'll
+fetch him along, and if he thinks they'd fetch anything above their
+skins I don't mind doin' you a kindness.'
+
+'You won't go away and never come back,' said Jane, 'because I don't
+think I COULD bear that.'
+
+The burglar, quite touched by her emotion, swore sentimentally that,
+alive or dead, he would come back.
+
+Then he went, and Cyril and Robert sent the girls to bed and sat up to
+wait for his return. It soon seemed absurd to await him in a state
+of wakefulness, but his stealthy tap on the window awoke them readily
+enough. For he did return, with the pal and the barrow and the sacks.
+The pal approved of the cats, now dormant in Persian repletion, and
+they were bundled into the sacks, and taken away on the barrow--mewing,
+indeed, but with mews too sleepy to attract public attention.
+
+'I'm a fence--that's what I am,' said the burglar gloomily. 'I never
+thought I'd come down to this, and all acause er my kind 'eart.'
+
+Cyril knew that a fence is a receiver of stolen goods, and he replied
+briskly--
+
+'I give you my sacred the cats aren't stolen. What do you make the
+time?'
+
+'I ain't got the time on me,' said the pal--'but it was just about
+chucking-out time as I come by the "Bull and Gate". I shouldn't wonder
+if it was nigh upon one now.'
+
+When the cats had been removed, and the boys and the burglar had parted
+with warm expressions of friendship, there remained only the cow.
+
+'She must stay all night,' said Robert. 'Cook'll have a fit when she
+sees her.'
+
+'All night?' said Cyril. 'Why--it's tomorrow morning if it's one. We can
+have another wish!'
+
+So the carpet was urged, in a hastily written note, to remove the cow to
+wherever she belonged, and to return to its proper place on the nursery
+floor. But the cow could not be got to move on to the carpet. So Robert
+got the clothes line out of the back kitchen, and tied one end very
+firmly to the cow's horns, and the other end to a bunched-up corner of
+the carpet, and said 'Fire away.'
+
+And the carpet and cow vanished together, and the boys went to bed,
+tired out and only too thankful that the evening at last was over.
+
+Next morning the carpet lay calmly in its place, but one corner was very
+badly torn. It was the corner that the cow had been tied on to.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 9. THE BURGLAR'S BRIDE
+
+
+The morning after the adventure of the Persian cats, the musk-rats, the
+common cow, and the uncommon burglar, all the children slept till it was
+ten o'clock; and then it was only Cyril who woke; but he attended to
+the others, so that by half past ten every one was ready to help to get
+breakfast. It was shivery cold, and there was but little in the house
+that was really worth eating.
+
+Robert had arranged a thoughtful little surprise for the absent
+servants. He had made a neat and delightful booby trap over the kitchen
+door, and as soon as they heard the front door click open and knew the
+servants had come back, all four children hid in the cupboard under
+the stairs and listened with delight to the entrance--the tumble, the
+splash, the scuffle, and the remarks of the servants. They heard the
+cook say it was a judgement on them for leaving the place to itself;
+she seemed to think that a booby trap was a kind of plant that was quite
+likely to grow, all by itself, in a dwelling that was left shut up. But
+the housemaid, more acute, judged that someone must have been in the
+house--a view confirmed by the sight of the breakfast things on the
+nursery table.
+
+The cupboard under the stairs was very tight and paraffiny, however, and
+a silent struggle for a place on top ended in the door bursting open
+and discharging Jane, who rolled like a football to the feet of the
+servants.
+
+'Now,' said Cyril, firmly, when the cook's hysterics had become quieter,
+and the housemaid had time to say what she thought of them, 'don't you
+begin jawing us. We aren't going to stand it. We know too much. You'll
+please make an extra special treacle roley for dinner, and we'll have a
+tinned tongue.'
+
+'I daresay,' said the housemaid, indignant, still in her outdoor things
+and with her hat very much on one side. 'Don't you come a-threatening
+me, Master Cyril, because I won't stand it, so I tell you. You tell
+your ma about us being out? Much I care! She'll be sorry for me when she
+hears about my dear great-aunt by marriage as brought me up from a child
+and was a mother to me. She sent for me, she did, she wasn't expected
+to last the night, from the spasms going to her legs--and cook was that
+kind and careful she couldn't let me go alone, so--'
+
+'Don't,' said Anthea, in real distress. 'You know where liars go to,
+Eliza--at least if you don't--'
+
+'Liars indeed!' said Eliza, 'I won't demean myself talking to you.'
+
+'How's Mrs Wigson?' said Robert, 'and DID you keep it up last night?'
+
+The mouth of the housemaid fell open.
+
+'Did you doss with Maria or Emily?' asked Cyril.
+
+'How did Mrs Prosser enjoy herself?' asked Jane.
+
+'Forbear,' said Cyril, 'they've had enough. Whether we tell or not
+depends on your later life,' he went on, addressing the servants. 'If
+you are decent to us we'll be decent to you. You'd better make that
+treacle roley--and if I were you, Eliza, I'd do a little housework and
+cleaning, just for a change.'
+
+The servants gave in once and for all.
+
+'There's nothing like firmness,' Cyril went on, when the breakfast
+things were cleared away and the children were alone in the nursery.
+'People are always talking of difficulties with servants. It's quite
+simple, when you know the way. We can do what we like now and they won't
+peach. I think we've broken THEIR proud spirit. Let's go somewhere by
+carpet.'
+
+'I wouldn't if I were you,' said the Phoenix, yawning, as it swooped
+down from its roost on the curtain pole. 'I've given you one or two
+hints, but now concealment is at an end, and I see I must speak out.'
+
+It perched on the back of a chair and swayed to and fro, like a parrot
+on a swing.
+
+'What's the matter now?' said Anthea. She was not quite so gentle as
+usual, because she was still weary from the excitement of last night's
+cats. 'I'm tired of things happening. I shan't go anywhere on the
+carpet. I'm going to darn my stockings.'
+
+'Darn!' said the Phoenix, 'darn! From those young lips these strange
+expressions--'
+
+'Mend, then,' said Anthea, 'with a needle and wool.'
+
+The Phoenix opened and shut its wings thoughtfully.
+
+'Your stockings,' it said, 'are much less important than they now appear
+to you. But the carpet--look at the bare worn patches, look at the great
+rent at yonder corner. The carpet has been your faithful friend--your
+willing servant. How have you requited its devoted service?'
+
+'Dear Phoenix,' Anthea urged, 'don't talk in that horrid lecturing tone.
+You make me feel as if I'd done something wrong. And really it is a
+wishing carpet, and we haven't done anything else to it--only wishes.'
+
+'Only wishes,' repeated the Phoenix, ruffling its neck feathers angrily,
+'and what sort of wishes? Wishing people to be in a good temper, for
+instance. What carpet did you ever hear of that had such a wish asked
+of it? But this noble fabric, on which you trample so recklessly' (every
+one removed its boots from the carpet and stood on the linoleum), 'this
+carpet never flinched. It did what you asked, but the wear and tear must
+have been awful. And then last night--I don't blame you about the cats
+and the rats, for those were its own choice; but what carpet could stand
+a heavy cow hanging on to it at one corner?'
+
+'I should think the cats and rats were worse,' said Robert, 'look at all
+their claws.'
+
+'Yes,' said the bird, 'eleven thousand nine hundred and forty of them--I
+daresay you noticed? I should be surprised if these had not left their
+mark.'
+
+'Good gracious,' said Jane, sitting down suddenly on the floor, and
+patting the edge of the carpet softly; 'do you mean it's WEARING OUT?'
+
+'Its life with you has not been a luxurious one,' said the Phoenix.
+
+'French mud twice. Sand of sunny shores twice. Soaking in southern seas
+once. India once. Goodness knows where in Persia once. Musk-rat-land
+once. And once, wherever the cow came from. Hold your carpet up to the
+light, and with cautious tenderness, if YOU please.'
+
+With cautious tenderness the boys held the carpet up to the light; the
+girls looked, and a shiver of regret ran through them as they saw how
+those eleven thoousand nine hundred and forty claws had run through the
+carpet. It was full of little holes: there were some large ones, and
+more than one thin place. At one corner a strip of it was torn, and hung
+forlornly.
+
+'We must mend it,' said Anthea; 'never mind about my stockings. I can
+sew them up in lumps with sewing cotton if there's no time to do them
+properly. I know it's awful and no girl would who respected herself,
+and all that; but the poor dear carpet's more important than my silly
+stockings. Let's go out now this very minute.'
+
+So out they all went, and bought wool to mend the carpet; but there
+is no shop in Camden Town where you can buy wishing-wool, no, nor in
+Kentish Town either. However, ordinary Scotch heather-mixture fingering
+seemed good enough, and this they bought, and all that day Jane and
+Anthea darned and darned and darned. The boys went out for a walk in
+the afternoon, and the gentle Phoenix paced up and down the table--for
+exercise, as it said--and talked to the industrious girls about their
+carpet.
+
+'It is not an ordinary, ignorant, innocent carpet from Kidderminster,'
+it said, 'it is a carpet with a past--a Persian past. Do you know that
+in happier years, when that carpet was the property of caliphs, viziers,
+kings, and sultans, it never lay on a floor?'
+
+'I thought the floor was the proper home of a carpet,' Jane interrupted.
+
+'Not of a MAGIC carpet,' said the Phoenix; 'why, if it had been allowed
+to lie about on floors there wouldn't be much of it left now. No,
+indeed! It has lived in chests of cedarwood, inlaid with pearl and
+ivory, wrapped in priceless tissues of cloth of gold, embroidered with
+gems of fabulous value. It has reposed in the sandal-wood caskets of
+princesses, and in the rose-attar-scented treasure-houses of kings.
+Never, never, had any one degraded it by walking on it--except in the
+way of business, when wishes were required, and then they always took
+their shoes off. And YOU--'
+
+'Oh, DON'T!' said Jane, very near tears. 'You know you'd never have been
+hatched at all if it hadn't been for mother wanting a carpet for us to
+walk on.'
+
+'You needn't have walked so much or so hard!' said the bird, 'but
+come, dry that crystal tear, and I will relate to you the story of the
+Princess Zulieka, the Prince of Asia, and the magic carpet.'
+
+'Relate away,' said Anthea--'I mean, please do.'
+
+'The Princess Zulieka, fairest of royal ladies,' began the bird, 'had in
+her cradle been the subject of several enchantments. Her grandmother had
+been in her day--'
+
+But what in her day Zulieka's grandmother had been was destined never to
+be revealed, for Cyril and Robert suddenly burst into the room, and on
+each brow were the traces of deep emotion. On Cyril's pale brow stood
+beads of agitation and perspiration, and on the scarlet brow of Robert
+was a large black smear.
+
+'What ails ye both?' asked the Phoenix, and it added tartly that
+story-telling was quite impossible if people would come interrupting
+like that.
+
+'Oh, do shut up, for any sake!' said Cyril, sinking into a chair.
+
+Robert smoothed the ruffled golden feathers, adding kindly--
+
+'Squirrel doesn't mean to be a beast. It's only that the MOST AWFUL
+thing has happened, and stories don't seem to matter so much. Don't be
+cross. You won't be when you've heard what's happened.'
+
+'Well, what HAS happened?' said the bird, still rather crossly; and
+Anthea and Jane paused with long needles poised in air, and long
+needlefuls of Scotch heather-mixture fingering wool drooping from them.
+
+'The most awful thing you can possibly think of,' said Cyril. 'That nice
+chap--our own burglar--the police have got him, on suspicion of stolen
+cats. That's what his brother's missis told me.'
+
+'Oh, begin at the beginning!' cried Anthea impatiently.
+
+'Well, then, we went out, and down by where the undertaker's is, with
+the china flowers in the window--you know. There was a crowd, and of
+course we went to have a squint. And it was two bobbies and our burglar
+between them, and he was being dragged along; and he said, "I tell you
+them cats was GIVE me. I got 'em in exchange for me milking a cow in a
+basement parlour up Camden Town way."
+
+'And the people laughed. Beasts! And then one of the policemen said
+perhaps he could give the name and address of the cow, and he said, no,
+he couldn't; but he could take them there if they'd only leave go of his
+coat collar, and give him a chance to get his breath. And the policeman
+said he could tell all that to the magistrate in the morning. He didn't
+see us, and so we came away.'
+
+'Oh, Cyril, how COULD you?' said Anthea.
+
+'Don't be a pudding-head,' Cyril advised. 'A fat lot of good it would
+have done if we'd let him see us. No one would have believed a word we
+said. They'd have thought we were kidding. We did better than let him
+see us. We asked a boy where he lived and he told us, and we went there,
+and it's a little greengrocer's shop, and we bought some Brazil nuts.
+Here they are.' The girls waved away the Brazil nuts with loathing and
+contempt.
+
+'Well, we had to buy SOMETHING, and while we were making up our minds
+what to buy we heard his brother's missis talking. She said when he came
+home with all them miaoulers she thought there was more in it than met
+the eye. But he WOULD go out this morning with the two likeliest of
+them, one under each arm. She said he sent her out to buy blue ribbon to
+put round their beastly necks, and she said if he got three months' hard
+it was her dying word that he'd got the blue ribbon to thank for it;
+that, and his own silly thieving ways, taking cats that anybody would
+know he couldn't have come by in the way of business, instead of things
+that wouldn't have been missed, which Lord knows there are plenty such,
+and--'
+
+'Oh, STOP!' cried Jane. And indeed it was time, for Cyril seemed like a
+clock that had been wound up, and could not help going on. 'Where is he
+now?'
+
+'At the police-station,' said Robert, for Cyril was out of breath. 'The
+boy told us they'd put him in the cells, and would bring him up
+before the Beak in the morning. I thought it was a jolly lark last
+night--getting him to take the cats--but now--'
+
+'The end of a lark,' said the Phoenix, 'is the Beak.'
+
+'Let's go to him,' cried both the girls jumping up. 'Let's go and tell
+the truth. They MUST believe us.'
+
+'They CAN'T,' said Cyril. 'Just think! If any one came to you with such
+a tale, you couldn't believe it, however much you tried. We should only
+mix things up worse for him.'
+
+'There must be something we could do,' said Jane, sniffing very
+much--'my own dear pet burglar! I can't bear it. And he was so nice,
+the way he talked about his father, and how he was going to be so extra
+honest. Dear Phoenix, you MUST be able to help us. You're so good and
+kind and pretty and clever. Do, do tell us what to do.'
+
+The Phoenix rubbed its beak thoughtfully with its claw.
+
+'You might rescue him,' it said, 'and conceal him here, till the
+law-supporters had forgotten about him.'
+
+'That would be ages and ages,' said Cyril, 'and we couldn't conceal him
+here. Father might come home at any moment, and if he found the burglar
+here HE wouldn't believe the true truth any more than the police would.
+That's the worst of the truth. Nobody ever believes it. Couldn't we take
+him somewhere else?'
+
+Jane clapped her hands.
+
+'The sunny southern shore!' she cried, 'where the cook is being queen.
+He and she would be company for each other!'
+
+And really the idea did not seem bad, if only he would consent to go.
+
+So, all talking at once, the children arranged to wait till evening, and
+then to seek the dear burglar in his lonely cell.
+
+Meantime Jane and Anthea darned away as hard as they could, to make the
+carpet as strong as possible. For all felt how terrible it would be if
+the precious burglar, while being carried to the sunny southern shore,
+were to tumble through a hole in the carpet, and be lost for ever in the
+sunny southern sea.
+
+The servants were tired after Mrs Wigson's party, so every one went to
+bed early, and when the Phoenix reported that both servants were snoring
+in a heartfelt and candid manner, the children got up--they had never
+undressed; just putting their nightgowns on over their things had been
+enough to deceive Eliza when she came to turn out the gas. So they were
+ready for anything, and they stood on the carpet and said--
+
+'I wish we were in our burglar's lonely cell.' and instantly they were.
+
+I think every one had expected the cell to be the 'deepest dungeon below
+the castle moat'. I am sure no one had doubted that the burglar, chained
+by heavy fetters to a ring in the damp stone wall, would be tossing
+uneasily on a bed of straw, with a pitcher of water and a mouldering
+crust, untasted, beside him. Robert, remembering the underground passage
+and the treasure, had brought a candle and matches, but these were not
+needed.
+
+The cell was a little white-washed room about twelve feet long and
+six feet wide. On one side of it was a sort of shelf sloping a little
+towards the wall. On this were two rugs, striped blue and yellow, and a
+water-proof pillow. Rolled in the rugs, and with his head on the pillow,
+lay the burglar, fast asleep. (He had had his tea, though this the
+children did not know--it had come from the coffee-shop round the
+corner, in very thick crockery.) The scene was plainly revealed by the
+light of a gas-lamp in the passage outside, which shone into the cell
+through a pane of thick glass over the door.
+
+'I shall gag him,' said Cyril, 'and Robert will hold him down. Anthea
+and Jane and the Phoenix can whisper soft nothings to him while he
+gradually awakes.'
+
+This plan did not have the success it deserved, because the burglar,
+curiously enough, was much stronger, even in his sleep, than Robert and
+Cyril, and at the first touch of their hands he leapt up and shouted out
+something very loud indeed.
+
+Instantly steps were heard outside. Anthea threw her arms round the
+burglar and whispered--
+
+'It's us--the ones that gave you the cats. We've come to save you, only
+don't let on we're here. Can't we hide somewhere?'
+
+Heavy boots sounded on the flagged passage outside, and a firm voice
+shouted--
+
+'Here--you--stop that row, will you?'
+
+'All right, governor,' replied the burglar, still with Anthea's arms
+round him; 'I was only a-talking in my sleep. No offence.'
+
+It was an awful moment. Would the boots and the voice come in. Yes! No!
+The voice said--
+
+'Well, stow it, will you?'
+
+And the boots went heavily away, along the passage and up some sounding
+stone stairs.
+
+'Now then,' whispered Anthea.
+
+'How the blue Moses did you get in?' asked the burglar, in a hoarse
+whisper of amazement.
+
+'On the carpet,' said Jane, truly.
+
+'Stow that,' said the burglar. 'One on you I could 'a' swallowed, but
+four--AND a yellow fowl.'
+
+'Look here,' said Cyril, sternly, 'you wouldn't have believed any one if
+they'd told you beforehand about your finding a cow and all those cats
+in our nursery.'
+
+'That I wouldn't,' said the burglar, with whispered fervour, 'so help me
+Bob, I wouldn't.'
+
+'Well, then,' Cyril went on, ignoring this appeal to his brother, 'just
+try to believe what we tell you and act accordingly. It can't do you any
+HARM, you know,' he went on in hoarse whispered earnestness. 'You can't
+be very much worse off than you are now, you know. But if you'll just
+trust to us we'll get you out of this right enough. No one saw us come
+in. The question is, where would you like to go?'
+
+'I'd like to go to Boolong,' was the instant reply of the burglar. 'I've
+always wanted to go on that there trip, but I've never 'ad the ready at
+the right time of the year.'
+
+'Boolong is a town like London,' said Cyril, well meaning, but
+inaccurate, 'how could you get a living there?'
+
+The burglar scratched his head in deep doubt.
+
+'It's 'ard to get a 'onest living anywheres nowadays,' he said, and his
+voice was sad.
+
+'Yes, isn't it?' said Jane, sympathetically; 'but how about a sunny
+southern shore, where there's nothing to do at all unless you want to.'
+
+'That's my billet, miss,' replied the burglar. 'I never did care about
+work--not like some people, always fussing about.'
+
+'Did you never like any sort of work?' asked Anthea, severely.
+
+'Lor', lumme, yes,' he answered, 'gardening was my 'obby, so it was. But
+father died afore 'e could bind me to a nurseryman, an'--'
+
+'We'll take you to the sunny southern shore,' said Jane; 'you've no idea
+what the flowers are like.'
+
+'Our old cook's there,' said Anthea. 'She's queen--'
+
+'Oh, chuck it,' the burglar whispered, clutching at his head with both
+hands. 'I knowed the first minute I see them cats and that cow as it was
+a judgement on me. I don't know now whether I'm a-standing on my hat or
+my boots, so help me I don't. If you CAN get me out, get me, and if you
+can't, get along with you for goodness' sake, and give me a chanst
+to think about what'll be most likely to go down with the Beak in the
+morning.'
+
+'Come on to the carpet, then,' said Anthea, gently shoving. The others
+quietly pulled, and the moment the feet of the burglar were planted on
+the carpet Anthea wished:
+
+'I wish we were all on the sunny southern shore where cook is.'
+
+And instantly they were. There were the rainbow sands, the tropic
+glories of leaf and flower, and there, of course, was the cook, crowned
+with white flowers, and with all the wrinkles of crossness and tiredness
+and hard work wiped out of her face.
+
+'Why, cook, you're quite pretty!' Anthea said, as soon as she had got
+her breath after the tumble-rush-whirl of the carpet. The burglar stood
+rubbing his eyes in the brilliant tropic sunlight, and gazing wildly
+round him on the vivid hues of the tropic land.
+
+'Penny plain and tuppence coloured!' he exclaimed pensively, 'and well
+worth any tuppence, however hard-earned.'
+
+The cook was seated on a grassy mound with her court of copper-coloured
+savages around her. The burglar pointed a grimy finger at these.
+
+'Are they tame?' he asked anxiously. 'Do they bite or scratch, or do
+anything to yer with poisoned arrows or oyster shells or that?'
+
+'Don't you be so timid,' said the cook. 'Look'e 'ere, this 'ere's only
+a dream what you've come into, an' as it's only a dream there's no
+nonsense about what a young lady like me ought to say or not, so I'll
+say you're the best-looking fellow I've seen this many a day. And the
+dream goes on and on, seemingly, as long as you behaves. The things what
+you has to eat and drink tastes just as good as real ones, and--'
+
+'Look 'ere,' said the burglar, 'I've come 'ere straight outer the pleece
+station. These 'ere kids'll tell you it ain't no blame er mine.'
+
+'Well, you WERE a burglar, you know,' said the truthful Anthea gently.
+
+'Only because I was druv to it by dishonest blokes, as well you knows,
+miss,' rejoined the criminal. 'Blowed if this ain't the 'ottest January
+as I've known for years.'
+
+'Wouldn't you like a bath?' asked the queen, 'and some white clothes
+like me?'
+
+'I should only look a juggins in 'em, miss, thanking you all the same,'
+was the reply; 'but a bath I wouldn't resist, and my shirt was only
+clean on week before last.'
+
+Cyril and Robert led him to a rocky pool, where he bathed luxuriously.
+Then, in shirt and trousers he sat on the sand and spoke.
+
+'That cook, or queen, or whatever you call her--her with the white bokay
+on her 'ed--she's my sort. Wonder if she'd keep company!'
+
+'I should ask her.'
+
+'I was always a quick hitter,' the man went on; 'it's a word and a blow
+with me. I will.'
+
+In shirt and trousers, and crowned with a scented flowery wreath which
+Cyril hastily wove as they returned to the court of the queen, the
+burglar stood before the cook and spoke.
+
+'Look 'ere, miss,' he said. 'You an' me being' all forlorn-like, both on
+us, in this 'ere dream, or whatever you calls it, I'd like to tell you
+straight as I likes yer looks.'
+
+The cook smiled and looked down bashfully.
+
+'I'm a single man--what you might call a batcheldore. I'm mild in my
+'abits, which these kids'll tell you the same, and I'd like to 'ave the
+pleasure of walkin' out with you next Sunday.'
+
+'Lor!' said the queen cook, ''ow sudden you are, mister.'
+
+'Walking out means you're going to be married,' said Anthea. 'Why not
+get married and have done with it? _I_ would.'
+
+'I don't mind if I do,' said the burglar. But the cook said--
+
+'No, miss. Not me, not even in a dream. I don't say anythink ag'in the
+young chap's looks, but I always swore I'd be married in church, if at
+all--and, anyway, I don't believe these here savages would know how
+to keep a registering office, even if I was to show them. No, mister,
+thanking you kindly, if you can't bring a clergyman into the dream I'll
+live and die like what I am.'
+
+'Will you marry her if we get a clergyman?' asked the match-making
+Anthea.
+
+'I'm agreeable, miss, I'm sure,' said he, pulling his wreath straight.
+''Ow this 'ere bokay do tiddle a chap's ears to be sure!'
+
+So, very hurriedly, the carpet was spread out, and instructed to fetch
+a clergyman. The instructions were written on the inside of Cyril's cap
+with a piece of billiard chalk Robert had got from the marker at the
+hotel at Lyndhurst. The carpet disappeared, and more quickly than you
+would have thought possible it came back, bearing on its bosom the
+Reverend Septimus Blenkinsop.
+
+The Reverend Septimus was rather a nice young man, but very much mazed
+and muddled, because when he saw a strange carpet laid out at his feet,
+in his own study, he naturally walked on it to examine it more closely.
+And he happened to stand on one of the thin places that Jane and Anthea
+had darned, so that he was half on wishing carpet and half on plain
+Scotch heather-mixture fingering, which has no magic properties at all.
+
+The effect of this was that he was only half there--so that the children
+could just see through him, as though he had been a ghost. And as for
+him, he saw the sunny southern shore, the cook and the burglar and the
+children quite plainly; but through them all he saw, quite plainly also,
+his study at home, with the books and the pictures and the marble clock
+that had been presented to him when he left his last situation.
+
+He seemed to himself to be in a sort of insane fit, so that it did not
+matter what he did--and he married the burglar to the cook. The cook
+said that she would rather have had a solider kind of a clergyman, one
+that you couldn't see through so plain, but perhaps this was real enough
+for a dream.
+
+And of course the clergyman, though misty, was really real, and able
+to marry people, and he did. When the ceremony was over the clergyman
+wandered about the island collecting botanical specimens, for he was a
+great botanist, and the ruling passion was strong even in an insane fit.
+
+There was a splendid wedding feast. Can you fancy Jane and Anthea,
+and Robert and Cyril, dancing merrily in a ring, hand-in-hand with
+copper-coloured savages, round the happy couple, the queen cook and the
+burglar consort? There were more flowers gathered and thrown than you
+have ever even dreamed of, and before the children took carpet for home
+the now married-and-settled burglar made a speech.
+
+'Ladies and gentlemen,' he said, 'and savages of both kinds, only I know
+you can't understand what I'm a saying of, but we'll let that pass.
+If this is a dream, I'm on. If it ain't, I'm onner than ever. If it's
+betwixt and between--well, I'm honest, and I can't say more. I don't
+want no more 'igh London society--I've got some one to put my arm around
+of; and I've got the whole lot of this 'ere island for my allotment, and
+if I don't grow some broccoli as'll open the judge's eye at the cottage
+flower shows, well, strike me pink! All I ask is, as these young gents
+and ladies'll bring some parsley seed into the dream, and a penn'orth of
+radish seed, and threepenn'orth of onion, and I wouldn't mind goin' to
+fourpence or fippence for mixed kale, only I ain't got a brown, so I
+don't deceive you. And there's one thing more, you might take away the
+parson. I don't like things what I can see 'alf through, so here's how!'
+He drained a coconut-shell of palm wine.
+
+It was now past midnight--though it was tea-time on the island.
+
+With all good wishes the children took their leave. They also collected
+the clergyman and took him back to his study and his presentation clock.
+
+The Phoenix kindly carried the seeds next day to the burglar and his
+bride, and returned with the most satisfactory news of the happy pair.
+
+'He's made a wooden spade and started on his allotment,' it said, 'and
+she is weaving him a shirt and trousers of the most radiant whiteness.'
+
+The police never knew how the burglar got away. In Kentish Town Police
+Station his escape is still spoken of with bated breath as the Persian
+mystery.
+
+As for the Reverend Septimus Blenkinsop, he felt that he had had a
+very insane fit indeed, and he was sure it was due to over-study. So he
+planned a little dissipation, and took his two maiden aunts to Paris,
+where they enjoyed a dazzling round of museums and picture galleries,
+and came back feeling that they had indeed seen life. He never told his
+aunts or any one else about the marriage on the island--because no
+one likes it to be generally known if he has had insane fits, however
+interesting and unusual.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 10. THE HOLE IN THE CARPET
+
+
+     Hooray! hooray! hooray!
+     Mother comes home to-day;
+     Mother comes home to-day,
+     Hooray! hooray! hooray!'
+
+Jane sang this simple song directly after breakfast, and the Phoenix
+shed crystal tears of affectionate sympathy.
+
+'How beautiful,' it said, 'is filial devotion!'
+
+'She won't be home till past bedtime, though,' said Robert. 'We might
+have one more carpet-day.'
+
+He was glad that mother was coming home--quite glad, very glad; but at
+the same time that gladness was rudely contradicted by a quite strong
+feeling of sorrow, because now they could not go out all day on the
+carpet.
+
+'I do wish we could go and get something nice for mother, only she'd
+want to know where we got it,' said Anthea. 'And she'd never, never
+believe it, the truth. People never do, somehow, if it's at all
+interesting.'
+
+'I'll tell you what,' said Robert. 'Suppose we wished the carpet to take
+us somewhere where we could find a purse with money in it--then we could
+buy her something.'
+
+'Suppose it took us somewhere foreign, and the purse was covered with
+strange Eastern devices, embroidered in rich silks, and full of money
+that wasn't money at all here, only foreign curiosities, then we
+couldn't spend it, and people would bother about where we got it, and we
+shouldn't know how on earth to get out of it at all.'
+
+Cyril moved the table off the carpet as he spoke, and its leg caught
+in one of Anthea's darns and ripped away most of it, as well as a large
+slit in the carpet.
+
+'Well, now you HAVE done it,' said Robert.
+
+But Anthea was a really first-class sister. She did not say a word
+till she had got out the Scotch heather-mixture fingering wool and the
+darning-needle and the thimble and the scissors, and by that time she
+had been able to get the better of her natural wish to be thoroughly
+disagreeable, and was able to say quite kindly--
+
+'Never mind, Squirrel, I'll soon mend it.'
+
+Cyril thumped her on the back. He understood exactly how she had felt,
+and he was not an ungrateful brother.
+
+'Respecting the purse containing coins,' the Phoenix said, scratching
+its invisible ear thoughtfully with its shining claw, 'it might be as
+well, perhaps, to state clearly the amount which you wish to find, as
+well as the country where you wish to find it, and the nature of the
+coins which you prefer. It would be indeed a cold moment when you should
+find a purse containing but three oboloi.'
+
+'How much is an oboloi?'
+
+'An obol is about twopence halfpenny,' the Phoenix replied.
+
+'Yes,' said Jane, 'and if you find a purse I suppose it is only because
+some one has lost it, and you ought to take it to the policeman.'
+
+'The situation,' remarked the Phoenix, 'does indeed bristle with
+difficulties.'
+
+'What about a buried treasure,' said Cyril, 'and every one was dead that
+it belonged to?'
+
+'Mother wouldn't believe THAT,' said more than one voice.
+
+'Suppose,' said Robert--'suppose we asked to be taken where we could
+find a purse and give it back to the person it belonged to, and they
+would give us something for finding it?'
+
+'We aren't allowed to take money from strangers. You know we aren't,
+Bobs,' said Anthea, making a knot at the end of a needleful of Scotch
+heather-mixture fingering wool (which is very wrong, and you must never
+do it when you are darning).
+
+'No, THAT wouldn't do,' said Cyril. 'Let's chuck it and go to the North
+Pole, or somewhere really interesting.'
+
+'No,' said the girls together, 'there must be SOME way.'
+
+'Wait a sec,' Anthea added. 'I've got an idea coming. Don't speak.'
+
+There was a silence as she paused with the darning-needle in the air!
+Suddenly she spoke:
+
+'I see. Let's tell the carpet to take us somewhere where we can get the
+money for mother's present, and--and--and get it some way that she'll
+believe in and not think wrong.'
+
+'Well, I must say you are learning the way to get the most out of the
+carpet,' said Cyril. He spoke more heartily and kindly than usual,
+because he remembered how Anthea had refrained from snarking him about
+tearing the carpet.
+
+'Yes,' said the Phoenix, 'you certainly are. And you have to remember
+that if you take a thing out it doesn't stay in.'
+
+No one paid any attention to this remark at the time, but afterwards
+every one thought of it.
+
+'Do hurry up, Panther,' said Robert; and that was why Anthea did hurry
+up, and why the big darn in the middle of the carpet was all open and
+webby like a fishing net, not tight and close like woven cloth, which is
+what a good, well-behaved darn should be.
+
+Then every one put on its outdoor things, the Phoenix fluttered on to
+the mantelpiece and arranged its golden feathers in the glass, and all
+was ready. Every one got on to the carpet.
+
+'Please go slowly, dear carpet,' Anthea began; we like to see where
+we're going.' And then she added the difficult wish that had been
+decided on.
+
+Next moment the carpet, stiff and raftlike, was sailing over the roofs
+of Kentish Town.
+
+'I wish--No, I don't mean that. I mean it's a PITY we aren't higher up,'
+said Anthea, as the edge of the carpet grazed a chimney-pot.
+
+'That's right. Be careful,' said the Phoenix, in warning tones. 'If you
+wish when you're on a wishing carpet, you DO wish, and there's an end of
+it.'
+
+So for a short time no one spoke, and the carpet sailed on in calm
+magnificence over St Pancras and King's Cross stations and over the
+crowded streets of Clerkenwell.
+
+'We're going out Greenwich way,' said Cyril, as they crossed the streak
+of rough, tumbled water that was the Thames. 'We might go and have a
+look at the Palace.'
+
+On and on the carpet swept, still keeping much nearer to the
+chimney-pots than the children found at all comfortable. And then, just
+over New Cross, a terrible thing happened.
+
+Jane and Robert were in the middle of the carpet. Part of them was
+on the carpet, and part of them--the heaviest part--was on the great
+central darn.
+
+'It's all very misty,' said Jane; 'it looks partly like out of doors
+and partly like in the nursery at home. I feel as if I was going to have
+measles; everything looked awfully rum then, remember.'
+
+'I feel just exactly the same,' Robert said.
+
+'It's the hole,' said the Phoenix; 'it's not measles whatever that
+possession may be.'
+
+And at that both Robert and Jane suddenly, and at once, made a bound to
+try and get on to the safer part of the carpet, and the darn gave way
+and their boots went up, and the heavy heads and bodies of them went
+down through the hole, and they landed in a position something between
+sitting and sprawling on the flat leads on the top of a high, grey,
+gloomy, respectable house whose address was 705, Amersham Road, New
+Cross.
+
+The carpet seemed to awaken to new energy as soon as it had got rid of
+their weight, and it rose high in the air. The others lay down flat and
+peeped over the edge of the rising carpet.
+
+'Are you hurt?' cried Cyril, and Robert shouted 'No,' and next moment
+the carpet had sped away, and Jane and Robert were hidden from the sight
+of the others by a stack of smoky chimneys.
+
+'Oh, how awful!' said Anthea.
+
+'It might have been worse,' said the Phoenix. 'What would have been
+the sentiments of the survivors if that darn had given way when we were
+crossing the river?'
+
+'Yes, there's that,' said Cyril, recovering himself. 'They'll be all
+right. They'll howl till some one gets them down, or drop tiles into
+the front garden to attract attention of passersby. Bobs has got my
+one-and-fivepence--lucky you forgot to mend that hole in my pocket,
+Panther, or he wouldn't have had it. They can tram it home.'
+
+But Anthea would not be comforted.
+
+'It's all my fault,' she said. 'I KNEW the proper way to darn, and I
+didn't do it. It's all my fault. Let's go home and patch the carpet with
+your Etons--something really strong--and send it to fetch them.'
+
+'All right,' said Cyril; 'but your Sunday jacket is stronger than my
+Etons. We must just chuck mother's present, that's all. I wish--'
+
+'Stop!' cried the Phoenix; 'the carpet is dropping to earth.'
+
+And indeed it was.
+
+It sank swiftly, yet steadily, and landed on the pavement of the
+Deptford Road. It tipped a little as it landed, so that Cyril and Anthea
+naturally walked off it, and in an instant it had rolled itself up and
+hidden behind a gate-post. It did this so quickly that not a single
+person in the Deptford Road noticed it. The Phoenix rustled its way into
+the breast of Cyril's coat, and almost at the same moment a well-known
+voice remarked--
+
+'Well, I never! What on earth are you doing here?'
+
+They were face to face with their pet uncle--their Uncle Reginald.
+
+'We DID think of going to Greenwich Palace and talking about Nelson,'
+said Cyril, telling as much of the truth as he thought his uncle could
+believe.
+
+'And where are the others?' asked Uncle Reginald.
+
+'I don't exactly know,' Cyril replied, this time quite truthfully.
+
+'Well,' said Uncle Reginald, 'I must fly. I've a case in the County
+Court. That's the worst of being a beastly solicitor. One can't take the
+chances of life when one gets them. If only I could come with you to the
+Painted Hall and give you lunch at the "Ship" afterwards! But, alas! it
+may not be.'
+
+The uncle felt in his pocket.
+
+'_I_ mustn't enjoy myself,' he said, 'but that's no reason why you
+shouldn't. Here, divide this by four, and the product ought to give you
+some desired result. Take care of yourselves. Adieu.'
+
+And waving a cheery farewell with his neat umbrella, the good and
+high-hatted uncle passed away, leaving Cyril and Anthea to exchange
+eloquent glances over the shining golden sovereign that lay in Cyril's
+hand.
+
+'Well!' said Anthea.
+
+'Well!' said Cyril.
+
+'Well!' said the Phoenix.
+
+'Good old carpet!' said Cyril, joyously.
+
+'It WAS clever of it--so adequate and yet so simple,' said the Phoenix,
+with calm approval.
+
+'Oh, come on home and let's mend the carpet. I am a beast. I'd forgotten
+the others just for a minute,' said the conscience-stricken Anthea.
+
+They unrolled the carpet quickly and slyly--they did not want to attract
+public attention--and the moment their feet were on the carpet Anthea
+wished to be at home, and instantly they were.
+
+The kindness of their excellent uncle had made it unnecessary for them
+to go to such extremes as Cyril's Etons or Anthea's Sunday jacket for
+the patching of the carpet.
+
+Anthea set to work at once to draw the edges of the broken darn
+together, and Cyril hastily went out and bought a large piece of the
+marble-patterned American oil-cloth which careful house-wives use to
+cover dressers and kitchen tables. It was the strongest thing he could
+think of.
+
+Then they set to work to line the carpet throughout with the oil-cloth.
+The nursery felt very odd and empty without the others, and Cyril did
+not feel so sure as he had done about their being able to 'tram it'
+home. So he tried to help Anthea, which was very good of him, but not
+much use to her.
+
+The Phoenix watched them for a time, but it was plainly growing more and
+more restless. It fluffed up its splendid feathers, and stood first on
+one gilded claw and then on the other, and at last it said--
+
+'I can bear it no longer. This suspense! My Robert--who set my egg to
+hatch--in the bosom of whose Norfolk raiment I have nestled so often and
+so pleasantly! I think, if you'll excuse me--'
+
+'Yes--DO,' cried Anthea, 'I wish we'd thought of asking you before.'
+
+Cyril opened the window. The Phoenix flapped its sunbright wings and
+vanished.
+
+'So THAT'S all right,' said Cyril, taking up his needle and instantly
+pricking his hand in a new place.
+
+
+Of course I know that what you have really wanted to know about all this
+time is not what Anthea and Cyril did, but what happened to Jane and
+Robert after they fell through the carpet on to the leads of the house
+which was called number 705, Amersham Road.
+
+But I had to tell you the other first. That is one of the most annoying
+things about stories, you cannot tell all the different parts of them at
+the same time.
+
+Robert's first remark when he found himself seated on the damp, cold,
+sooty leads was--
+
+'Here's a go!'
+
+Jane's first act was tears.
+
+'Dry up, Pussy; don't be a little duffer,' said her brother, kindly,
+'it'll be all right.'
+
+And then he looked about, just as Cyril had known he would, for
+something to throw down, so as to attract the attention of the wayfarers
+far below in the street. He could not find anything. Curiously enough,
+there were no stones on the leads, not even a loose tile. The roof was
+of slate, and every single slate knew its place and kept it. But, as so
+often happens, in looking for one thing he found another. There was a
+trap-door leading down into the house.
+
+And that trap-door was not fastened.
+
+'Stop snivelling and come here, Jane,' he cried, encouragingly. 'Lend a
+hand to heave this up. If we can get into the house, we might sneak down
+without meeting any one, with luck. Come on.'
+
+They heaved up the door till it stood straight up, and, as they bent to
+look into the hole below, the door fell back with a hollow clang on the
+leads behind, and with its noise was mingled a blood-curdling scream
+from underneath.
+
+'Discovered!' hissed Robert. 'Oh, my cats alive!'
+
+They were indeed discovered.
+
+They found themselves looking down into an attic, which was also
+a lumber-room. It had boxes and broken chairs, old fenders and
+picture-frames, and rag-bags hanging from nails.
+
+In the middle of the floor was a box, open, half full of clothes. Other
+clothes lay on the floor in neat piles. In the middle of the piles of
+clothes sat a lady, very fat indeed, with her feet sticking out straight
+in front of her. And it was she who had screamed, and who, in fact, was
+still screaming.
+
+'Don't!' cried Jane, 'please don't! We won't hurt you.'
+
+'Where are the rest of your gang?' asked the lady, stopping short in the
+middle of a scream.
+
+'The others have gone on, on the wishing carpet,' said Jane truthfully.
+
+'The wishing carpet?' said the lady.
+
+'Yes,' said Jane, before Robert could say 'You shut up!' 'You must have
+read about it. The Phoenix is with them.'
+
+Then the lady got up, and picking her way carefully between the piles of
+clothes she got to the door and through it. She shut it behind her, and
+the two children could hear her calling 'Septimus! Septimus!' in a loud
+yet frightened way.
+
+'Now,' said Robert quickly; 'I'll drop first.'
+
+He hung by his hands and dropped through the trap-door.
+
+'Now you. Hang by your hands. I'll catch you. Oh, there's no time for
+jaw. Drop, I say.'
+
+Jane dropped.
+
+Robert tried to catch her, and even before they had finished the
+breathless roll among the piles of clothes, which was what his catching
+ended in, he whispered--
+
+'We'll hide--behind those fenders and things; they'll think we've gone
+along the roofs. Then, when all is calm, we'll creep down the stairs and
+take our chance.'
+
+They hastily hid. A corner of an iron bedstead stuck into Robert's side,
+and Jane had only standing room for one foot--but they bore it--and when
+the lady came back, not with Septimus, but with another lady, they held
+their breath and their hearts beat thickly.
+
+'Gone!' said the first lady; 'poor little things--quite mad, my
+dear--and at large! We must lock this room and send for the police.'
+
+'Let me look out,' said the second lady, who was, if possible, older
+and thinner and primmer than the first. So the two ladies dragged a box
+under the trap-door and put another box on the top of it, and then they
+both climbed up very carefully and put their two trim, tidy heads out of
+the trap-door to look for the 'mad children'.
+
+'Now,' whispered Robert, getting the bedstead leg out of his side.
+
+They managed to creep out from their hiding-place and out through the
+door before the two ladies had done looking out of the trap-door on to
+the empty leads.
+
+Robert and Jane tiptoed down the stairs--one flight, two flights. Then
+they looked over the banisters. Horror! a servant was coming up with a
+loaded scuttle.
+
+The children with one consent crept swiftly through the first open door.
+
+The room was a study, calm and gentlemanly, with rows of books, a
+writing table, and a pair of embroidered slippers warming themselves in
+the fender. The children hid behind the window-curtains. As they passed
+the table they saw on it a missionary-box with its bottom label torn
+off, open and empty.
+
+'Oh, how awful!' whispered Jane. 'We shall never get away alive.'
+
+'Hush!' said Robert, not a moment too soon, for there were steps on the
+stairs, and next instant the two ladies came into the room. They did not
+see the children, but they saw the empty missionary box.
+
+'I knew it,' said one. 'Selina, it WAS a gang. I was certain of it from
+the first. The children were not mad. They were sent to distract our
+attention while their confederates robbed the house.'
+
+'I am afraid you are right,' said Selina; 'and WHERE ARE THEY NOW?'
+
+'Downstairs, no doubt, collecting the silver milk-jug and sugar-basin
+and the punch-ladle that was Uncle Joe's, and Aunt Jerusha's teaspoons.
+I shall go down.'
+
+'Oh, don't be so rash and heroic,' said Selina. 'Amelia, we must call
+the police from the window. Lock the door. I WILL--I will--'
+
+The words ended in a yell as Selina, rushing to the window, came face to
+face with the hidden children.
+
+'Oh, don't!' said Jane; 'how can you be so unkind? We AREN'T burglars,
+and we haven't any gang, and we didn't open your missionary-box.
+We opened our own once, but we didn't have to use the money, so our
+consciences made us put it back and--DON'T! Oh, I wish you wouldn't--'
+
+Miss Selina had seized Jane and Miss Amelia captured Robert. The
+children found themselves held fast by strong, slim hands, pink at the
+wrists and white at the knuckles.
+
+'We've got YOU, at any rate,' said Miss Amelia. 'Selina, your captive
+is smaller than mine. You open the window at once and call "Murder!" as
+loud as you can.
+
+Selina obeyed; but when she had opened the window, instead of calling
+'Murder!' she called 'Septimus!' because at that very moment she saw her
+nephew coming in at the gate.
+
+In another minute he had let himself in with his latch-key and had
+mounted the stairs. As he came into the room Jane and Robert each
+uttered a shriek of joy so loud and so sudden that the ladies leaped
+with surprise, and nearly let them go.
+
+'It's our own clergyman,' cried Jane.
+
+'Don't you remember us?' asked Robert. 'You married our burglar for
+us--don't you remember?'
+
+'I KNEW it was a gang,' said Amelia. 'Septimus, these abandoned children
+are members of a desperate burgling gang who are robbing the house. They
+have already forced the missionary-box and purloined its contents.'
+
+The Reverend Septimus passed his hand wearily over his brow.
+
+'I feel a little faint,' he said, 'running upstairs so quickly.'
+
+'We never touched the beastly box,' said Robert.
+
+'Then your confederates did,' said Miss Selina.
+
+'No, no,' said the curate, hastily. '_I_ opened the box myself.
+This morning I found I had not enough small change for the Mothers'
+Independent Unity Measles and Croup Insurance payments. I suppose this
+is NOT a dream, is it?'
+
+'Dream? No, indeed. Search the house. I insist upon it.'
+
+The curate, still pale and trembling, searched the house, which, of
+course, was blamelessly free of burglars.
+
+When he came back he sank wearily into his chair.
+
+'Aren't you going to let us go?' asked Robert, with furious indignation,
+for there is something in being held by a strong lady that sets the
+blood of a boy boiling in his veins with anger and despair. 'We've never
+done anything to you. It's all the carpet. It dropped us on the leads.
+WE couldn't help it. You know how it carried you over to the island, and
+you had to marry the burglar to the cook.'
+
+'Oh, my head!' said the curate.
+
+'Never mind your head just now,' said Robert; 'try to be honest and
+honourable, and do your duty in that state of life!'
+
+'This is a judgement on me for something, I suppose,' said the Reverend
+Septimus, wearily, 'but I really cannot at the moment remember what.'
+
+'Send for the police,' said Miss Selina.
+
+'Send for a doctor,' said the curate.
+
+'Do you think they ARE mad, then,' said Miss Amelia.
+
+'I think I am,' said the curate.
+
+Jane had been crying ever since her capture. Now she said-- 'You aren't
+now, but perhaps you will be, if--And it would serve you jolly well
+right, too.'
+
+'Aunt Selina,' said the curate, 'and Aunt Amelia, believe me, this is
+only an insane dream. You will realize it soon. It has happened to me
+before. But do not let us be unjust, even in a dream. Do not hold the
+children; they have done no harm. As I said before, it was I who opened
+the box.'
+
+The strong, bony hands unwillingly loosened their grasp. Robert shook
+himself and stood in sulky resentment. But Jane ran to the curate and
+embraced him so suddenly that he had not time to defend himself.
+
+'You're a dear,' she said. 'It IS like a dream just at first, but you
+get used to it. Now DO let us go. There's a good, kind, honourable
+clergyman.'
+
+'I don't know,' said the Reverend Septimus; 'it's a difficult problem.
+It is such a very unusual dream. Perhaps it's only a sort of other
+life--quite real enough for you to be mad in. And if you're mad, there
+might be a dream-asylum where you'd be kindly treated, and in time
+restored, cured, to your sorrowing relatives. It is very hard to see
+your duty plainly, even in ordinary life, and these dream-circumstances
+are so complicated--'
+
+'If it's a dream,' said Robert, 'you will wake up directly, and then
+you'd be sorry if you'd sent us into a dream-asylum, because you might
+never get into the same dream again and let us out, and so we might stay
+there for ever, and then what about our sorrowing relatives who aren't
+in the dreams at all?'
+
+But all the curate could now say was, 'Oh, my head!'
+
+And Jane and Robert felt quite ill with helplessness and hopelessness. A
+really conscientious curate is a very difficult thing to manage.
+
+And then, just as the hopelessness and the helplessness were getting to
+be almost more than they could bear, the two children suddenly felt that
+extraordinary shrinking feeling that you always have when you are just
+going to vanish. And the next moment they had vanished, and the Reverend
+Septimus was left alone with his aunts.
+
+'I knew it was a dream,' he cried, wildly. 'I've had something like
+it before. Did you dream it too, Aunt Selina, and you, Aunt Amelia? I
+dreamed that you did, you know.'
+
+Aunt Selina looked at him and then at Aunt Amelia. Then she said
+boldly--
+
+'What do you mean? WE haven't been dreaming anything. You must have
+dropped off in your chair.'
+
+The curate heaved a sigh of relief.
+
+'Oh, if it's only _I_,' he said; 'if we'd all dreamed it I could never
+have believed it, never!'
+
+Afterwards Aunt Selina said to the other aunt--
+
+'Yes, I know it was an untruth, and I shall doubtless be punished for it
+in due course. But I could see the poor dear fellow's brain giving way
+before my very eyes. He couldn't have stood the strain of three dreams.
+It WAS odd, wasn't it? All three of us dreaming the same thing at the
+same moment. We must never tell dear Seppy. But I shall send an account
+of it to the Psychical Society, with stars instead of names, you know.'
+
+And she did. And you can read all about it in one of the society's fat
+Blue-books.
+
+Of course, you understand what had happened? The intelligent Phoenix had
+simply gone straight off to the Psammead, and had wished Robert and Jane
+at home. And, of course, they were at home at once. Cyril and Anthea had
+not half finished mending the carpet.
+
+When the joyful emotions of reunion had calmed down a little, they
+all went out and spent what was left of Uncle Reginald's sovereign in
+presents for mother. They bought her a pink silk handkerchief, a pair of
+blue and white vases, a bottle of scent, a packet of Christmas candles,
+and a cake of soap shaped and coloured like a tomato, and one that was
+so like an orange that almost any one you had given it to would have
+tried to peel it--if they liked oranges, of course. Also they bought a
+cake with icing on, and the rest of the money they spent on flowers to
+put in the vases.
+
+When they had arranged all the things on a table, with the candles stuck
+up on a plate ready to light the moment mother's cab was heard, they
+washed themselves thoroughly and put on tidier clothes.
+
+Then Robert said, 'Good old Psammead,' and the others said so too.
+
+'But, really, it's just as much good old Phoenix,' said Robert. 'Suppose
+it hadn't thought of getting the wish!'
+
+'Ah!' said the Phoenix, 'it is perhaps fortunate for you that I am such
+a competent bird.'
+
+'There's mother's cab,' cried Anthea, and the Phoenix hid and they
+lighted the candles, and next moment mother was home again.
+
+She liked her presents very much, and found their story of Uncle
+Reginald and the sovereign easy and even pleasant to believe.
+
+'Good old carpet,' were Cyril's last sleepy words.
+
+'What there is of it,' said the Phoenix, from the cornice-pole.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 11. THE BEGINNING OF THE END
+
+
+'Well, I MUST say,' mother said, looking at the wishing carpet as it
+lay, all darned and mended and backed with shiny American cloth, on the
+floor of the nursery--'I MUST say I've never in my life bought such a
+bad bargain as that carpet.'
+
+A soft 'Oh!' of contradiction sprang to the lips of Cyril, Robert, Jane,
+and Anthea. Mother looked at them quickly, and said--
+
+'Well, of course, I see you've mended it very nicely, and that was sweet
+of you, dears.'
+
+'The boys helped too,' said the dears, honourably.
+
+'But, still--twenty-two and ninepence! It ought to have lasted for
+years. It's simply dreadful now. Well, never mind, darlings, you've
+done your best. I think we'll have coconut matting next time. A carpet
+doesn't have an easy life of it in this room, does it?'
+
+'It's not our fault, mother, is it, that our boots are the really
+reliable kind?' Robert asked the question more in sorrow than in anger.
+
+'No, dear, we can't help our boots,' said mother, cheerfully, 'but we
+might change them when we come in, perhaps. It's just an idea of mine.
+I wouldn't dream of scolding on the very first morning after I've come
+home. Oh, my Lamb, how could you?'
+
+This conversation was at breakfast, and the Lamb had been beautifully
+good until every one was looking at the carpet, and then it was for him
+but the work of a moment to turn a glass dish of syrupy blackberry jam
+upside down on his young head. It was the work of a good many minutes
+and several persons to get the jam off him again, and this interesting
+work took people's minds off the carpet, and nothing more was said just
+then about its badness as a bargain and about what mother hoped for from
+coconut matting.
+
+When the Lamb was clean again he had to be taken care of while mother
+rumpled her hair and inked her fingers and made her head ache over the
+difficult and twisted house-keeping accounts which cook gave her on
+dirty bits of paper, and which were supposed to explain how it was that
+cook had only fivepence-half-penny and a lot of unpaid bills left out
+of all the money mother had sent her for house-keeping. Mother was very
+clever, but even she could not quite understand the cook's accounts.
+
+The Lamb was very glad to have his brothers and sisters to play with
+him. He had not forgotten them a bit, and he made them play all the old
+exhausting games: 'Whirling Worlds', where you swing the baby round and
+round by his hands; and 'Leg and Wing', where you swing him from side
+to side by one ankle and one wrist. There was also climbing Vesuvius.
+In this game the baby walks up you, and when he is standing on your
+shoulders, you shout as loud as you can, which is the rumbling of the
+burning mountain, and then tumble him gently on to the floor, and roll
+him there, which is the destruction of Pompeii.
+
+'All the same, I wish we could decide what we'd better say next time
+mother says anything about the carpet,' said Cyril, breathlessly ceasing
+to be a burning mountain.
+
+'Well, you talk and decide,' said Anthea; 'here, you lovely ducky Lamb.
+Come to Panther and play Noah's Ark.'
+
+The Lamb came with his pretty hair all tumbled and his face all dusty
+from the destruction of Pompeii, and instantly became a baby snake,
+hissing and wriggling and creeping in Anthea's arms, as she said--
+
+
+     'I love my little baby snake,
+     He hisses when he is awake,
+     He creeps with such a wriggly creep,
+     He wriggles even in his sleep.'
+
+
+'Crocky,' said the Lamb, and showed all his little teeth. So Anthea went
+on--
+
+
+     'I love my little crocodile,
+     I love his truthful toothful smile;
+     It is so wonderful and wide,
+     I like to see it--FROM OUTSIDE.'
+
+
+'Well, you see,' Cyril was saying; 'it's just the old bother. Mother
+can't believe the real true truth about the carpet, and--'
+
+'You speak sooth, O Cyril,' remarked the Phoenix, coming out from the
+cupboard where the blackbeetles lived, and the torn books, and the
+broken slates, and odd pieces of toys that had lost the rest of
+themselves. 'Now hear the wisdom of Phoenix, the son of the Phoenix--'
+
+'There is a society called that,' said Cyril.
+
+'Where is it? And what is a society?' asked the bird.
+
+'It's a sort of joined-together lot of people--a sort of brotherhood--a
+kind of--well, something very like your temple, you know, only quite
+different.'
+
+'I take your meaning,' said the Phoenix. 'I would fain see these calling
+themselves Sons of the Phoenix.'
+
+'But what about your words of wisdom?'
+
+'Wisdom is always welcome,' said the Phoenix.
+
+'Pretty Polly!' remarked the Lamb, reaching his hands towards the golden
+speaker.
+
+The Phoenix modestly retreated behind Robert, and Anthea hastened to
+distract the attention of the Lamb by murmuring--
+
+
+     "I love my little baby rabbit;
+     But oh! he has a dreadful habit
+     Of paddling out among the rocks
+     And soaking both his bunny socks.'
+
+
+'I don't think you'd care about the sons of the Phoenix, really,' said
+Robert. 'I have heard that they don't do anything fiery. They only drink
+a great deal. Much more than other people, because they drink lemonade
+and fizzy things, and the more you drink of those the more good you
+get.'
+
+'In your mind, perhaps,' said Jane; 'but it wouldn't be good in your
+body. You'd get too balloony.'
+
+The Phoenix yawned.
+
+'Look here,' said Anthea; 'I really have an idea. This isn't like a
+common carpet. It's very magic indeed. Don't you think, if we put Tatcho
+on it, and then gave it a rest, the magic part of it might grow, like
+hair is supposed to do?'
+
+'It might,' said Robert; 'but I should think paraffin would do as
+well--at any rate as far as the smell goes, and that seems to be the
+great thing about Tatcho.'
+
+But with all its faults Anthea's idea was something to do, and they did
+it.
+
+It was Cyril who fetched the Tatcho bottle from father's washhand-stand.
+But the bottle had not much in it.
+
+'We mustn't take it all,' Jane said, 'in case father's hair began to
+come off suddenly. If he hadn't anything to put on it, it might all
+drop off before Eliza had time to get round to the chemist's for another
+bottle. It would be dreadful to have a bald father, and it would all be
+our fault.'
+
+'And wigs are very expensive, I believe,' said Anthea. 'Look here, leave
+enough in the bottle to wet father's head all over with in case any
+emergency emerges--and let's make up with paraffin. I expect it's the
+smell that does the good really--and the smell's exactly the same.'
+
+So a small teaspoonful of the Tatcho was put on the edges of the worst
+darn in the carpet and rubbed carefully into the roots of the hairs of
+it, and all the parts that there was not enough Tatcho for had paraffin
+rubbed into them with a piece of flannel. Then the flannel was burned.
+It made a gay flame, which delighted the Phoenix and the Lamb.
+
+'How often,' said mother, opening the door--'how often am I to tell you
+that you are NOT to play with paraffin? What have you been doing?'
+
+'We have burnt a paraffiny rag,' Anthea answered.
+
+It was no use telling mother what they had done to the carpet. She did
+not know it was a magic carpet, and no one wants to be laughed at for
+trying to mend an ordinary carpet with lamp-oil.
+
+'Well, don't do it again,' said mother. 'And now, away with melancholy!
+Father has sent a telegram. Look!' She held it out, and the children,
+holding it by its yielding corners, read--
+
+
+'Box for kiddies at Garrick. Stalls for us, Haymarket. Meet Charing
+Cross, 6.30.'
+
+
+'That means,' said mother, 'that you're going to see "The Water Babies"
+all by your happy selves, and father and I will take you and fetch you.
+Give me the Lamb, dear, and you and Jane put clean lace in your red
+evening frocks, and I shouldn't wonder if you found they wanted ironing.
+This paraffin smell is ghastly. Run and get out your frocks.'
+
+The frocks did want ironing--wanted it rather badly, as it happened;
+for, being of tomato-Coloured Liberty silk, they had been found very
+useful for tableaux vivants when a red dress was required for Cardinal
+Richelieu. They were very nice tableaux, these, and I wish I could tell
+you about them; but one cannot tell everything in a story. You would
+have been specially interested in hearing about the tableau of the
+Princes in the Tower, when one of the pillows burst, and the youthful
+Princes were so covered with feathers that the picture might very well
+have been called 'Michaelmas Eve; or, Plucking the Geese'.
+
+Ironing the dresses and sewing the lace in occupied some time, and no
+one was dull, because there was the theatre to look forward to, and also
+the possible growth of hairs on the carpet, for which every one kept
+looking anxiously. By four o'clock Jane was almost sure that several
+hairs were beginning to grow.
+
+The Phoenix perched on the fender, and its conversation, as usual, was
+entertaining and instructive--like school prizes are said to be. But it
+seemed a little absent-minded, and even a little sad.
+
+'Don't you feel well, Phoenix, dear?' asked Anthea, stooping to take an
+iron off the fire.
+
+'I am not sick,' replied the golden bird, with a gloomy shake of the
+head; 'but I am getting old.'
+
+'Why, you've hardly been hatched any time at all.'
+
+'Time,' remarked the Phoenix, 'is measured by heartbeats. I'm sure the
+palpitations I've had since I've known you are enough to blanch the
+feathers of any bird.'
+
+'But I thought you lived 500 years,' said Robert, and you've hardly
+begun this set of years. Think of all the time that's before you.'
+
+'Time,' said the Phoenix, 'is, as you are probably aware, merely a
+convenient fiction. There is no such thing as time. I have lived in
+these two months at a pace which generously counterbalances 500 years of
+life in the desert. I am old, I am weary. I feel as if I ought to lay my
+egg, and lay me down to my fiery sleep. But unless I'm careful I shall
+be hatched again instantly, and that is a misfortune which I really
+do not think I COULD endure. But do not let me intrude these desperate
+personal reflections on your youthful happiness. What is the show at the
+theatre to-night? Wrestlers? Gladiators? A combat of cameleopards and
+unicorns?'
+
+'I don't think so,' said Cyril; 'it's called "The Water Babies", and
+if it's like the book there isn't any gladiating in it. There are
+chimney-sweeps and professors, and a lobster and an otter and a salmon,
+and children living in the water.'
+
+'It sounds chilly.' The Phoenix shivered, and went to sit on the tongs.
+
+'I don't suppose there will be REAL water,' said Jane. 'And theatres are
+very warm and pretty, with a lot of gold and lamps. Wouldn't you like to
+come with us?'
+
+'_I_ was just going to say that,' said Robert, in injured tones, 'only
+I know how rude it is to interrupt. Do come, Phoenix, old chap; it will
+cheer you up. It'll make you laugh like any thing. Mr Bourchier always
+makes ripping plays. You ought to have seen "Shock-headed Peter" last
+year.'
+
+'Your words are strange,' said the Phoenix, 'but I will come with you.
+The revels of this Bourchier, of whom you speak, may help me to forget
+the weight of my years.' So that evening the Phoenix snugged inside the
+waistcoat of Robert's Etons--a very tight fit it seemed both to Robert
+and to the Phoenix--and was taken to the play.
+
+Robert had to pretend to be cold at the glittering, many-mirrored
+restaurant where they ate dinner, with father in evening dress, with
+a very shiny white shirt-front, and mother looking lovely in her grey
+evening dress, that changes into pink and green when she moves. Robert
+pretended that he was too cold to take off his great-coat, and so sat
+sweltering through what would otherwise have been a most thrilling meal.
+He felt that he was a blot on the smart beauty of the family, and he
+hoped the Phoenix knew what he was suffering for its sake. Of course,
+we are all pleased to suffer for the sake of others, but we like them
+to know it unless we are the very best and noblest kind of people, and
+Robert was just ordinary.
+
+Father was full of jokes and fun, and every one laughed all the time,
+even with their mouths full, which is not manners. Robert thought father
+would not have been quite so funny about his keeping his over-coat on if
+father had known all the truth. And there Robert was probably right.
+
+When dinner was finished to the last grape and the last paddle in the
+finger glasses--for it was a really truly grown-up dinner--the children
+were taken to the theatre, guided to a box close to the stage, and left.
+
+Father's parting words were: 'Now, don't you stir out of this box,
+whatever you do. I shall be back before the end of the play. Be good
+and you will be happy. Is this zone torrid enough for the abandonment of
+great-coats, Bobs? No? Well, then, I should say you were sickening for
+something--mumps or measles or thrush or teething. Goodbye.'
+
+He went, and Robert was at last able to remove his coat, mop his
+perspiring brow, and release the crushed and dishevelled Phoenix. Robert
+had to arrange his damp hair at the looking-glass at the back of the
+box, and the Phoenix had to preen its disordered feathers for some time
+before either of them was fit to be seen.
+
+They were very, very early. When the lights went up fully, the Phoenix,
+balancing itself on the gilded back of a chair, swayed in ecstasy.
+
+'How fair a scene is this!' it murmured; 'how far fairer than my temple!
+Or have I guessed aright? Have you brought me hither to lift up my heart
+with emotions of joyous surprise? Tell me, my Robert, is it not that
+this, THIS is my true temple, and the other was but a humble shrine
+frequented by outcasts?'
+
+'I don't know about outcasts,' said Robert, 'but you can call this your
+temple if you like. Hush! the music is beginning.'
+
+I am not going to tell you about the play. As I said before, one can't
+tell everything, and no doubt you saw 'The Water Babies' yourselves. If
+you did not it was a shame, or, rather, a pity.
+
+What I must tell you is that, though Cyril and Jane and Robert and
+Anthea enjoyed it as much as any children possibly could, the pleasure
+of the Phoenix was far, far greater than theirs.
+
+'This is indeed my temple,' it said again and again. 'What radiant
+rites! And all to do honour to me!'
+
+The songs in the play it took to be hymns in its honour. The choruses
+were choric songs in its praise. The electric lights, it said, were
+magic torches lighted for its sake, and it was so charmed with the
+footlights that the children could hardly persuade it to sit still. But
+when the limelight was shown it could contain its approval no longer. It
+flapped its golden wings, and cried in a voice that could be heard all
+over the theatre:
+
+'Well done, my servants! Ye have my favour and my countenance!'
+
+Little Tom on the stage stopped short in what he was saying. A deep
+breath was drawn by hundreds of lungs, every eye in the house turned to
+the box where the luckless children cringed, and most people hissed, or
+said 'Shish!' or 'Turn them out!'
+
+Then the play went on, and an attendant presently came to the box and
+spoke wrathfully.
+
+'It wasn't us, indeed it wasn't,' said Anthea, earnestly; 'it was the
+bird.'
+
+The man said well, then, they must keep their bird very quiet.
+'Disturbing every one like this,' he said.
+
+'It won't do it again,' said Robert, glancing imploringly at the golden
+bird; 'I'm sure it won't.'
+
+'You have my leave to depart,' said the Phoenix gently.
+
+'Well, he is a beauty, and no mistake,' said the attendant, 'only I'd
+cover him up during the acts. It upsets the performance.'
+
+And he went.
+
+'Don't speak again, there's a dear,' said Anthea; 'you wouldn't like to
+interfere with your own temple, would you?'
+
+So now the Phoenix was quiet, but it kept whispering to the children. It
+wanted to know why there was no altar, no fire, no incense, and became
+so excited and fretful and tiresome that four at least of the party of
+five wished deeply that it had been left at home.
+
+What happened next was entirely the fault of the Phoenix. It was not
+in the least the fault of the theatre people, and no one could ever
+understand afterwards how it did happen. No one, that is, except the
+guilty bird itself and the four children. The Phoenix was balancing
+itself on the gilt back of the chair, swaying backwards and forwards and
+up and down, as you may see your own domestic parrot do. I mean the grey
+one with the red tail. All eyes were on the stage, where the lobster
+was delighting the audience with that gem of a song, 'If you can't walk
+straight, walk sideways!' when the Phoenix murmured warmly--
+
+'No altar, no fire, no incense!' and then, before any of the children
+could even begin to think of stopping it, it spread its bright wings and
+swept round the theatre, brushing its gleaming feathers against delicate
+hangings and gilded woodwork.
+
+It seemed to have made but one circular wing-sweep, such as you may see
+a gull make over grey water on a stormy day. Next moment it was perched
+again on the chair-back--and all round the theatre, where it had passed,
+little sparks shone like tinsel seeds, then little smoke wreaths curled
+up like growing plants--little flames opened like flower-buds. People
+whispered--then people shrieked.
+
+'Fire! Fire!' The curtain went down--the lights went up.
+
+'Fire!' cried every one, and made for the doors.
+
+'A magnificent idea!' said the Phoenix, complacently. 'An enormous
+altar--fire supplied free of charge. Doesn't the incense smell
+delicious?'
+
+The only smell was the stifling smell of smoke, of burning silk, or
+scorching varnish.
+
+The little flames had opened now into great flame-flowers. The people in
+the theatre were shouting and pressing towards the doors.
+
+'Oh, how COULD you!' cried Jane. 'Let's get out.'
+
+'Father said stay here,' said Anthea, very pale, and trying to speak in
+her ordinary voice.
+
+'He didn't mean stay and be roasted,' said Robert. 'No boys on burning
+decks for me, thank you.'
+
+'Not much,' said Cyril, and he opened the door of the box.
+
+But a fierce waft of smoke and hot air made him shut it again. It was
+not possible to get out that way.
+
+They looked over the front of the box. Could they climb down?
+
+It would be possible, certainly; but would they be much better off?
+
+'Look at the people,' moaned Anthea; 'we couldn't get through.'
+
+And, indeed, the crowd round the doors looked as thick as flies in the
+jam-making season.
+
+'I wish we'd never seen the Phoenix,' cried Jane.
+
+Even at that awful moment Robert looked round to see if the bird
+had overheard a speech which, however natural, was hardly polite or
+grateful.
+
+The Phoenix was gone.
+
+'Look here,' said Cyril, 'I've read about fires in papers; I'm sure it's
+all right. Let's wait here, as father said.'
+
+'We can't do anything else,' said Anthea bitterly.
+
+'Look here,' said Robert, 'I'm NOT frightened--no, I'm not. The Phoenix
+has never been a skunk yet, and I'm certain it'll see us through
+somehow. I believe in the Phoenix!'
+
+'The Phoenix thanks you, O Robert,' said a golden voice at his feet, and
+there was the Phoenix itself, on the Wishing Carpet.
+
+'Quick!' it said. 'Stand on those portions of the carpet which are truly
+antique and authentic--and--'
+
+A sudden jet of flame stopped its words. Alas! the Phoenix had
+unconsciously warmed to its subject, and in the unintentional heat of
+the moment had set fire to the paraffin with which that morning the
+children had anointed the carpet. It burned merrily. The children tried
+in vain to stamp it out. They had to stand back and let it burn itself
+out. When the paraffin had burned away it was found that it had taken
+with it all the darns of Scotch heather-mixture fingering. Only the
+fabric of the old carpet was left--and that was full of holes.
+
+'Come,' said the Phoenix, 'I'm cool now.'
+
+The four children got on to what was left of the carpet. Very careful
+they were not to leave a leg or a hand hanging over one of the holes. It
+was very hot--the theatre was a pit of fire. Every one else had got out.
+
+Jane had to sit on Anthea's lap.
+
+'Home!' said Cyril, and instantly the cool draught from under the
+nursery door played upon their legs as they sat. They were all on
+the carpet still, and the carpet was lying in its proper place on the
+nursery floor, as calm and unmoved as though it had never been to the
+theatre or taken part in a fire in its life.
+
+Four long breaths of deep relief were instantly breathed. The draught
+which they had never liked before was for the moment quite pleasant. And
+they were safe. And every one else was safe. The theatre had been quite
+empty when they left. Every one was sure of that.
+
+They presently found themselves all talking at once. Somehow none of
+their adventures had given them so much to talk about. None other had
+seemed so real.
+
+'Did you notice--?' they said, and 'Do you remember--?'
+
+When suddenly Anthea's face turned pale under the dirt which it had
+collected on it during the fire.
+
+'Oh,' she cried, 'mother and father! Oh, how awful! They'll think we're
+burned to cinders. Oh, let's go this minute and tell them we aren't.'
+
+'We should only miss them,' said the sensible Cyril.
+
+'Well--YOU go then,' said Anthea, 'or I will. Only do wash your face
+first. Mother will be sure to think you are burnt to a cinder if she
+sees you as black as that, and she'll faint or be ill or something. Oh,
+I wish we'd never got to know that Phoenix.'
+
+'Hush!' said Robert; 'it's no use being rude to the bird. I suppose it
+can't help its nature. Perhaps we'd better wash too. Now I come to think
+of it my hands are rather--'
+
+No one had noticed the Phoenix since it had bidden them to step on the
+carpet. And no one noticed that no one had noticed.
+
+All were partially clean, and Cyril was just plunging into his
+great-coat to go and look for his parents--he, and not unjustly, called
+it looking for a needle in a bundle of hay--when the sound of father's
+latchkey in the front door sent every one bounding up the stairs.
+
+'Are you all safe?' cried mother's voice; 'are you all safe?' and the
+next moment she was kneeling on the linoleum of the hall, trying to
+kiss four damp children at once, and laughing and crying by turns, while
+father stood looking on and saying he was blessed or something.
+
+'But how did you guess we'd come home,' said Cyril, later, when every
+one was calm enough for talking.
+
+'Well, it was rather a rum thing. We heard the Garrick was on fire, and
+of course we went straight there,' said father, briskly. 'We couldn't
+find you, of course--and we couldn't get in--but the firemen told
+us every one was safely out. And then I heard a voice at my ear say,
+"Cyril, Anthea, Robert, and Jane"--and something touched me on the
+shoulder. It was a great yellow pigeon, and it got in the way of my
+seeing who'd spoken. It fluttered off, and then some one said in the
+other ear, "They're safe at home"; and when I turned again, to see who
+it was speaking, hanged if there wasn't that confounded pigeon on my
+other shoulder. Dazed by the fire, I suppose. Your mother said it was
+the voice of--'
+
+'I said it was the bird that spoke,' said mother, 'and so it was. Or at
+least I thought so then. It wasn't a pigeon. It was an orange-coloured
+cockatoo. I don't care who it was that spoke. It was true and you're
+safe.'
+
+Mother began to cry again, and father said bed was a good place after
+the pleasures of the stage.
+
+So every one went there.
+
+Robert had a talk to the Phoenix that night.
+
+'Oh, very well,' said the bird, when Robert had said what he felt,
+'didn't you know that I had power over fire? Do not distress yourself.
+I, like my high priests in Lombard Street, can undo the work of flames.
+Kindly open the casement.'
+
+It flew out.
+
+That was why the papers said next day that the fire at the theatre had
+done less damage than had been anticipated. As a matter of fact it had
+done none, for the Phoenix spent the night in putting things straight.
+How the management accounted for this, and how many of the theatre
+officials still believe that they were mad on that night will never be
+known.
+
+
+Next day mother saw the burnt holes in the carpet.
+
+'It caught where it was paraffiny,' said Anthea.
+
+'I must get rid of that carpet at once,' said mother.
+
+But what the children said in sad whispers to each other, as they
+pondered over last night's events, was--
+
+'We must get rid of that Phoenix.'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 12. THE END OF THE END
+
+
+'Egg, toast, tea, milk, tea-cup and saucer, egg-spoon, knife,
+butter--that's all, I think,' remarked Anthea, as she put the last
+touches to mother's breakfast-tray, and went, very carefully up the
+stairs, feeling for every step with her toes, and holding on to the tray
+with all her fingers. She crept into mother's room and set the tray on a
+chair. Then she pulled one of the blinds up very softly.
+
+'Is your head better, mammy dear?' she asked, in the soft little voice
+that she kept expressly for mother's headaches. 'I've brought your
+brekkie, and I've put the little cloth with clover-leaves on it, the one
+I made you.'
+
+'That's very nice,' said mother sleepily.
+
+Anthea knew exactly what to do for mothers with headaches who had
+breakfast in bed. She fetched warm water and put just enough eau de
+Cologne in it, and bathed mother's face and hands with the sweet-scented
+water. Then mother was able to think about breakfast.
+
+'But what's the matter with my girl?' she asked, when her eyes got used
+to the light.
+
+'Oh, I'm so sorry you're ill,' Anthea said. 'It's that horrible fire and
+you being so frightened. Father said so. And we all feel as if it was
+our faults. I can't explain, but--'
+
+'It wasn't your fault a bit, you darling goosie,' mother said. 'How
+could it be?'
+
+'That's just what I can't tell you,' said Anthea. 'I haven't got
+a futile brain like you and father, to think of ways of explaining
+everything.'
+
+Mother laughed.
+
+'My futile brain--or did you mean fertile?--anyway, it feels very stiff
+and sore this morning--but I shall be quite all right by and by. And
+don't be a silly little pet girl. The fire wasn't your faults. No; I
+don't want the egg, dear. I'll go to sleep again, I think. Don't you
+worry. And tell cook not to bother me about meals. You can order what
+you like for lunch.'
+
+Anthea closed the door very mousily, and instantly went downstairs and
+ordered what she liked for lunch. She ordered a pair of turkeys, a large
+plum-pudding, cheese-cakes, and almonds and raisins.
+
+Cook told her to go along, do. And she might as well not have ordered
+anything, for when lunch came it was just hashed mutton and semolina
+pudding, and cook had forgotten the sippets for the mutton hash and the
+semolina pudding was burnt.
+
+When Anthea rejoined the others she found them all plunged in the gloom
+where she was herself. For every one knew that the days of the carpet
+were now numbered. Indeed, so worn was it that you could almost have
+numbered its threads.
+
+So that now, after nearly a month of magic happenings, the time was at
+hand when life would have to go on in the dull, ordinary way and Jane,
+Robert, Anthea, and Cyril would be just in the same position as the
+other children who live in Camden Town, the children whom these four had
+so often pitied, and perhaps a little despised.
+
+'We shall be just like them,' Cyril said.
+
+'Except,' said Robert, 'that we shall have more things to remember and
+be sorry we haven't got.'
+
+'Mother's going to send away the carpet as soon as she's well enough to
+see about that coconut matting. Fancy us with coconut-matting--us! And
+we've walked under live coconut-trees on the island where you can't have
+whooping-cough.'
+
+'Pretty island,' said the Lamb; 'paint-box sands and sea all shiny
+sparkly.'
+
+His brothers and sisters had often wondered whether he remembered that
+island. Now they knew that he did.
+
+'Yes,' said Cyril; 'no more cheap return trips by carpet for us--that's
+a dead cert.'
+
+They were all talking about the carpet, but what they were all thinking
+about was the Phoenix.
+
+The golden bird had been so kind, so friendly, so polite, so
+instructive--and now it had set fire to a theatre and made mother ill.
+
+Nobody blamed the bird. It had acted in a perfectly natural manner. But
+every one saw that it must not be asked to prolong its visit. Indeed, in
+plain English it must be asked to go!
+
+The four children felt like base spies and treacherous friends; and each
+in its mind was saying who ought not to be the one to tell the Phoenix
+that there could no longer be a place for it in that happy home in
+Camden Town. Each child was quite sure that one of them ought to speak
+out in a fair and manly way, but nobody wanted to be the one.
+
+They could not talk the whole thing over as they would have liked to do,
+because the Phoenix itself was in the cupboard, among the blackbeetles
+and the odd shoes and the broken chessmen.
+
+But Anthea tried.
+
+'It's very horrid. I do hate thinking things about people, and not being
+able to say the things you're thinking because of the way they would
+feel when they thought what things you were thinking, and wondered
+what they'd done to make you think things like that, and why you were
+thinking them.'
+
+Anthea was so anxious that the Phoenix should not understand what she
+said that she made a speech completely baffling to all. It was not till
+she pointed to the cupboard in which all believed the Phoenix to be that
+Cyril understood.
+
+'Yes,' he said, while Jane and Robert were trying to tell each other how
+deeply they didn't understand what Anthea were saying; 'but after recent
+eventfulnesses a new leaf has to be turned over, and, after all,
+mother is more important than the feelings of any of the lower forms of
+creation, however unnatural.'
+
+'How beautifully you do do it,' said Anthea, absently beginning to build
+a card-house for the Lamb--'mixing up what you're saying, I mean. We
+ought to practise doing it so as to be ready for mysterious occasions.
+We're talking about THAT,' she said to Jane and Robert, frowning, and
+nodding towards the cupboard where the Phoenix was. Then Robert and Jane
+understood, and each opened its mouth to speak.
+
+'Wait a minute,' said Anthea quickly; 'the game is to twist up what you
+want to say so that no one can understand what you're saying except the
+people you want to understand it, and sometimes not them.'
+
+'The ancient philosophers,' said a golden voice, 'Well understood the
+art of which you speak.'
+
+Of course it was the Phoenix, who had not been in the cupboard at all,
+but had been cocking a golden eye at them from the cornice during the
+whole conversation.
+
+'Pretty dickie!' remarked the Lamb. 'CANARY dickie!'
+
+'Poor misguided infant,' said the Phoenix.
+
+There was a painful pause; the four could not but think it likely that
+the Phoenix had understood their very veiled allusions, accompanied as
+they had been by gestures indicating the cupboard. For the Phoenix was
+not wanting in intelligence.
+
+'We were just saying--' Cyril began, and I hope he was not going to
+say anything but the truth. Whatever it was he did not say it, for the
+Phoenix interrupted him, and all breathed more freely as it spoke.
+
+'I gather,' it said, 'that you have some tidings of a fatal nature to
+communicate to our degraded black brothers who run to and fro for ever
+yonder.' It pointed a claw at the cupboard, where the blackbeetles
+lived.
+
+'Canary TALK,' said the Lamb joyously; 'go and show mammy.'
+
+He wriggled off Anthea's lap.
+
+'Mammy's asleep,' said Jane, hastily. 'Come and be wild beasts in a cage
+under the table.'
+
+But the Lamb caught his feet and hands, and even his head, so often and
+so deeply in the holes of the carpet that the cage, or table, had to be
+moved on to the linoleum, and the carpet lay bare to sight with all its
+horrid holes.
+
+'Ah,' said the bird, 'it isn't long for this world.'
+
+'No,' said Robert; 'everything comes to an end. It's awful.'
+
+'Sometimes the end is peace,' remarked the Phoenix. 'I imagine that
+unless it comes soon the end of your carpet will be pieces.'
+
+'Yes,' said Cyril, respectfully kicking what was left of the carpet. The
+movement of its bright colours caught the eye of the Lamb, who went down
+on all fours instantly and began to pull at the red and blue threads.
+
+'Aggedydaggedygaggedy,' murmured the Lamb; 'daggedy ag ag ag!'
+
+And before any one could have winked (even if they had wanted to, and it
+would not have been of the slightest use) the middle of the floor showed
+bare, an island of boards surrounded by a sea of linoleum. The magic
+carpet was gone, AND SO WAS THE LAMB!
+
+There was a horrible silence. The Lamb--the baby, all alone--had been
+wafted away on that untrustworthy carpet, so full of holes and magic.
+And no one could know where he was. And no one could follow him because
+there was now no carpet to follow on.
+
+Jane burst into tears, but Anthea, though pale and frantic, was
+dry-eyed.
+
+'It MUST be a dream,' she said.
+
+'That's what the clergyman said,' remarked Robert forlornly; 'but it
+wasn't, and it isn't.'
+
+'But the Lamb never wished,' said Cyril; 'he was only talking Bosh.'
+
+'The carpet understands all speech,' said the Phoenix, 'even Bosh. I
+know not this Boshland, but be assured that its tongue is not unknown to
+the carpet.'
+
+'Do you mean, then,' said Anthea, in white terror, 'that when he was
+saying "Agglety dag," or whatever it was, that he meant something by
+it?'
+
+'All speech has meaning,' said the Phoenix.
+
+'There I think you're wrong,' said Cyril; 'even people who talk English
+sometimes say things that don't mean anything in particular.'
+
+'Oh, never mind that now,' moaned Anthea; 'you think "Aggety dag" meant
+something to him and the carpet?'
+
+'Beyond doubt it held the same meaning to the carpet as to the luckless
+infant,' the Phoenix said calmly.
+
+'And WHAT did it mean? Oh WHAT?'
+
+'Unfortunately,' the bird rejoined, 'I never studied Bosh.'
+
+Jane sobbed noisily, but the others were calm with what is sometimes
+called the calmness of despair. The Lamb was gone--the Lamb, their own
+precious baby brother--who had never in his happy little life been for a
+moment out of the sight of eyes that loved him--he was gone. He had gone
+alone into the great world with no other companion and protector than a
+carpet with holes in it. The children had never really understood
+before what an enormously big place the world is. And the Lamb might be
+anywhere in it!
+
+'And it's no use going to look for him.' Cyril, in flat and wretched
+tones, only said what the others were thinking.
+
+'Do you wish him to return?' the Phoenix asked; it seemed to speak with
+some surprise.
+
+'Of course we do!' cried everybody.
+
+'Isn't he more trouble than he's worth?' asked the bird doubtfully.
+
+'No, no. Oh, we do want him back! We do!'
+
+'Then,' said the wearer of gold plumage, 'if you'll excuse me, I'll just
+pop out and see what I can do.'
+
+Cyril flung open the window, and the Phoenix popped out.
+
+'Oh, if only mother goes on sleeping! Oh, suppose she wakes up and wants
+the Lamb! Oh, suppose the servants come! Stop crying, Jane. It's no
+earthly good. No, I'm not crying myself--at least I wasn't till you said
+so, and I shouldn't anyway if--if there was any mortal thing we could
+do. Oh, oh, oh!'
+
+Cyril and Robert were boys, and boys never cry, of course. Still, the
+position was a terrible one, and I do not wonder that they made faces in
+their efforts to behave in a really manly way.
+
+And at this awful moment mother's bell rang.
+
+A breathless stillness held the children. Then Anthea dried her eyes.
+She looked round her and caught up the poker. She held it out to Cyril.
+
+'Hit my hand hard,' she said; 'I must show mother some reason for my
+eyes being like they are. Harder,' she cried as Cyril gently tapped her
+with the iron handle. And Cyril, agitated and trembling, nerved himself
+to hit harder, and hit very much harder than he intended.
+
+Anthea screamed.
+
+'Oh, Panther, I didn't mean to hurt, really,' cried Cyril, clattering
+the poker back into the fender.
+
+'It's--all--right,' said Anthea breathlessly, clasping the hurt hand
+with the one that wasn't hurt; 'it's--getting--red.'
+
+It was--a round red and blue bump was rising on the back of it. 'Now,
+Robert,' she said, trying to breathe more evenly, 'you go out--oh, I
+don't know where--on to the dustbin--anywhere--and I shall tell mother
+you and the Lamb are out.'
+
+Anthea was now ready to deceive her mother for as long as ever she
+could. Deceit is very wrong, we know, but it seemed to Anthea that it
+was her plain duty to keep her mother from being frightened about the
+Lamb as long as possible. And the Phoenix might help.
+
+'It always has helped,' Robert said; 'it got us out of the tower, and
+even when it made the fire in the theatre it got us out all right. I'm
+certain it will manage somehow.'
+
+Mother's bell rang again.
+
+'Oh, Eliza's never answered it,' cried Anthea; 'she never does. Oh, I
+must go.'
+
+And she went.
+
+Her heart beat bumpingly as she climbed the stairs. Mother would be
+certain to notice her eyes--well, her hand would account for that. But
+the Lamb--
+
+'No, I must NOT think of the Lamb, she said to herself, and bit her
+tongue till her eyes watered again, so as to give herself something
+else to think of. Her arms and legs and back, and even her tear-reddened
+face, felt stiff with her resolution not to let mother be worried if she
+could help it.
+
+She opened the door softly.
+
+'Yes, mother?' she said.
+
+'Dearest,' said mother, 'the Lamb--'
+
+Anthea tried to be brave. She tried to say that the Lamb and Robert were
+out. Perhaps she tried too hard. Anyway, when she opened her mouth no
+words came. So she stood with it open. It seemed easier to keep from
+crying with one's mouth in that unusual position.
+
+'The Lamb,' mother went on; 'he was very good at first, but he's pulled
+the toilet-cover off the dressing-table with all the brushes and
+pots and things, and now he's so quiet I'm sure he's in some dreadful
+mischief. And I can't see him from here, and if I'd got out of bed to
+see I'm sure I should have fainted.'
+
+'Do you mean he's HERE?' said Anthea.
+
+'Of course he's here,' said mother, a little impatiently. 'Where did you
+think he was?'
+
+Anthea went round the foot of the big mahogany bed. There was a pause.
+
+'He's not here NOW,' she said.
+
+That he had been there was plain, from the toilet-cover on the floor,
+the scattered pots and bottles, the wandering brushes and combs, all
+involved in the tangle of ribbons and laces which an open drawer had
+yielded to the baby's inquisitive fingers.
+
+'He must have crept out, then,' said mother; 'do keep him with you,
+there's a darling. If I don't get some sleep I shall be a wreck when
+father comes home.'
+
+Anthea closed the door softly. Then she tore downstairs and burst into
+the nursery, crying--
+
+'He must have wished he was with mother. He's been there all the time.
+"Aggety dag--"'
+
+The unusual word was frozen on her lip, as people say in books.
+
+For there, on the floor, lay the carpet, and on the carpet, surrounded
+by his brothers and by Jane, sat the Lamb. He had covered his face and
+clothes with vaseline and violet powder, but he was easily recognizable
+in spite of this disguise.
+
+'You are right,' said the Phoenix, who was also present; 'it is evident
+that, as you say, "Aggety dag" is Bosh for "I want to be where my mother
+is," and so the faithful carpet understood it.'
+
+'But how,' said Anthea, catching up the Lamb and hugging him--'how did
+he get back here?'
+
+'Oh,' said the Phoenix, 'I flew to the Psammead and wished that your
+infant brother were restored to your midst, and immediately it was so.'
+
+'Oh, I am glad, I am glad!' cried Anthea, still hugging the baby. 'Oh,
+you darling! Shut up, Jane! I don't care HOW much he comes off on
+me! Cyril! You and Robert roll that carpet up and put it in the
+beetle-cupboard. He might say "Aggety dag" again, and it might mean
+something quite different next time. Now, my Lamb, Panther'll clean you
+a little. Come on.'
+
+'I hope the beetles won't go wishing,' said Cyril, as they rolled up the
+carpet.
+
+
+Two days later mother was well enough to go out, and that evening the
+coconut matting came home. The children had talked and talked, and
+thought and thought, but they had not found any polite way of telling
+the Phoenix that they did not want it to stay any longer.
+
+The days had been days spent by the children in embarrassment, and by
+the Phoenix in sleep.
+
+And, now the matting was laid down, the Phoenix awoke and fluttered down
+on to it.
+
+It shook its crested head.
+
+'I like not this carpet,' it said; 'it is harsh and unyielding, and it
+hurts my golden feet.'
+
+'We've jolly well got to get used to its hurting OUR golden feet,' said
+Cyril.
+
+'This, then,' said the bird, 'supersedes the Wishing Carpet.'
+
+'Yes,' said Robert, 'if you mean that it's instead of it.'
+
+'And the magic web?' inquired the Phoenix, with sudden eagerness.
+
+'It's the rag-and-bottle man's day to-morrow,' said Anthea, in a low
+voice; 'he will take it away.'
+
+The Phoenix fluttered up to its favourite perch on the chair-back.
+
+'Hear me!' it cried, 'oh youthful children of men, and restrain your
+tears of misery and despair, for what must be must be, and I would not
+remember you, thousands of years hence, as base ingrates and crawling
+worms compact of low selfishness.'
+
+'I should hope not, indeed,' said Cyril.
+
+'Weep not,' the bird went on; 'I really do beg that you won't weep.
+
+I will not seek to break the news to you gently. Let the blow fall at
+once. The time has come when I must leave you.'
+
+All four children breathed forth a long sigh of relief.
+
+'We needn't have bothered so about how to break the news to it,'
+whispered Cyril.
+
+'Ah, sigh not so,' said the bird, gently. 'All meetings end in partings.
+I must leave you. I have sought to prepare you for this. Ah, do not give
+way!'
+
+'Must you really go--so soon?' murmured Anthea. It was what she had
+often heard her mother say to calling ladies in the afternoon.
+
+'I must, really; thank you so much, dear,' replied the bird, just as
+though it had been one of the ladies.
+
+'I am weary,' it went on. 'I desire to rest--after all the happenings
+of this last moon I do desire really to rest, and I ask of you one last
+boon.'
+
+'Any little thing we can do,' said Robert.
+
+Now that it had really come to parting with the Phoenix, whose favourite
+he had always been, Robert did feel almost as miserable as the Phoenix
+thought they all did.
+
+'I ask but the relic designed for the rag-and-bottle man. Give me what
+is left of the carpet and let me go.'
+
+'Dare we?' said Anthea. 'Would mother mind?'
+
+'I have dared greatly for your sakes,' remarked the bird.
+
+'Well, then, we will,' said Robert.
+
+The Phoenix fluffed out its feathers joyously.
+
+'Nor shall you regret it, children of golden hearts,' it said.
+'Quick--spread the carpet and leave me alone; but first pile high the
+fire. Then, while I am immersed in the sacred preliminary rites, do ye
+prepare sweet-smelling woods and spices for the last act of parting.'
+
+The children spread out what was left of the carpet. And, after all,
+though this was just what they would have wished to have happened, all
+hearts were sad. Then they put half a scuttle of coal on the fire and
+went out, closing the door on the Phoenix--left, at last, alone with the
+carpet.
+
+'One of us must keep watch,' said Robert, excitedly, as soon as they
+were all out of the room, 'and the others can go and buy sweet woods and
+spices. Get the very best that money can buy, and plenty of them.
+Don't let's stand to a threepence or so. I want it to have a jolly good
+send-off. It's the only thing that'll make us feel less horrid inside.'
+
+It was felt that Robert, as the pet of the Phoenix, ought to have the
+last melancholy pleasure of choosing the materials for its funeral pyre.
+
+'I'll keep watch if you like,' said Cyril. 'I don't mind. And, besides,
+it's raining hard, and my boots let in the wet. You might call and see
+if my other ones are "really reliable" again yet.'
+
+So they left Cyril, standing like a Roman sentinel outside the door
+inside which the Phoenix was getting ready for the great change, and
+they all went out to buy the precious things for the last sad rites.
+
+'Robert is right,' Anthea said; 'this is no time for being careful about
+our money. Let's go to the stationer's first, and buy a whole packet of
+lead-pencils. They're cheaper if you buy them by the packet.'
+
+This was a thing that they had always wanted to do, but it needed the
+great excitement of a funeral pyre and a parting from a beloved Phoenix
+to screw them up to the extravagance.
+
+The people at the stationer's said that the pencils were real
+cedar-wood, so I hope they were, for stationers should always speak
+the truth. At any rate they cost one-and-fourpence. Also they spent
+sevenpence three-farthings on a little sandal-wood box inlaid with
+ivory.
+
+'Because,' said Anthea, 'I know sandalwood smells sweet, and when it's
+burned it smells very sweet indeed.'
+
+'Ivory doesn't smell at all,' said Robert, 'but I expect when you burn
+it it smells most awful vile, like bones.'
+
+At the grocer's they bought all the spices they could remember the names
+of--shell-like mace, cloves like blunt nails, peppercorns, the long
+and the round kind; ginger, the dry sort, of course; and the beautiful
+bloom-covered shells of fragrant cinnamon. Allspice too, and caraway
+seeds (caraway seeds that smelt most deadly when the time came for
+burning them).
+
+Camphor and oil of lavender were bought at the chemist's, and also a
+little scent sachet labelled 'Violettes de Parme'.
+
+They took the things home and found Cyril still on guard. When they had
+knocked and the golden voice of the Phoenix had said 'Come in,' they
+went in.
+
+There lay the carpet--or what was left of it--and on it lay an egg,
+exactly like the one out of which the Phoenix had been hatched.
+
+The Phoenix was walking round and round the egg, clucking with joy and
+pride.
+
+'I've laid it, you see,' it said, 'and as fine an egg as ever I laid in
+all my born days.'
+
+Every one said yes, it was indeed a beauty.
+
+The things which the children had bought were now taken out of their
+papers and arranged on the table, and when the Phoenix had been
+persuaded to leave its egg for a moment and look at the materials for
+its last fire it was quite overcome.
+
+'Never, never have I had a finer pyre than this will be. You shall not
+regret it,' it said, wiping away a golden tear. 'Write quickly: "Go and
+tell the Psammead to fulfil the last wish of the Phoenix, and return
+instantly".'
+
+But Robert wished to be polite and he wrote--
+
+'Please go and ask the Psammead to be so kind as to fulfil the Phoenix's
+last wish, and come straight back, if you please.' The paper was pinned
+to the carpet, which vanished and returned in the flash of an eye.
+
+Then another paper was written ordering the carpet to take the egg
+somewhere where it wouldn't be hatched for another two thousand years.
+The Phoenix tore itself away from its cherished egg, which it watched
+with yearning tenderness till, the paper being pinned on, the carpet
+hastily rolled itself up round the egg, and both vanished for ever from
+the nursery of the house in Camden Town.
+
+'Oh, dear! oh, dear! oh, dear!' said everybody.
+
+'Bear up,' said the bird; 'do you think _I_ don't suffer, being parted
+from my precious new-laid egg like this? Come, conquer your emotions and
+build my fire.'
+
+'OH!' cried Robert, suddenly, and wholly breaking down, 'I can't BEAR
+you to go!'
+
+The Phoenix perched on his shoulder and rubbed its beak softly against
+his ear.
+
+'The sorrows of youth soon appear but as dreams,' it said. 'Farewell,
+Robert of my heart. I have loved you well.'
+
+The fire had burnt to a red glow. One by one the spices and sweet woods
+were laid on it. Some smelt nice and some--the caraway seeds and the
+Violettes de Parme sachet among them--smelt worse than you would think
+possible.
+
+'Farewell, farewell, farewell, farewell!' said the Phoenix, in a
+far-away voice.
+
+'Oh, GOOD-BYE,' said every one, and now all were in tears.
+
+The bright bird fluttered seven times round the room and settled in the
+hot heart of the fire. The sweet gums and spices and woods flared and
+flickered around it, but its golden feathers did not burn. It seemed to
+grow red-hot to the very inside heart of it--and then before the eight
+eyes of its friends it fell together, a heap of white ashes, and the
+flames of the cedar pencils and the sandal-wood box met and joined above
+it.
+
+
+'Whatever have you done with the carpet?' asked mother next day.
+
+'We gave it to some one who wanted it very much. The name began with a
+P,' said Jane.
+
+The others instantly hushed her.
+
+'Oh, well, it wasn't worth twopence,' said mother.
+
+'The person who began with P said we shouldn't lose by it,' Jane went on
+before she could be stopped.
+
+'I daresay!' said mother, laughing.
+
+But that very night a great box came, addressed to the children by all
+their names. Eliza never could remember the name of the carrier who
+brought it. It wasn't Carter Paterson or the Parcels Delivery.
+
+It was instantly opened. It was a big wooden box, and it had to
+be opened with a hammer and the kitchen poker; the long nails came
+squeaking out, and boards scrunched as they were wrenched off. Inside
+the box was soft paper, with beautiful Chinese patterns on it--blue and
+green and red and violet. And under the paper--well, almost everything
+lovely that you can think of. Everything of reasonable size, I mean;
+for, of course, there were no motors or flying machines or thoroughbred
+chargers. But there really was almost everything else. Everything that
+the children had always wanted--toys and games and books, and chocolate
+and candied cherries and paint-boxes and photographic cameras, and all
+the presents they had always wanted to give to father and mother and the
+Lamb, only they had never had the money for them. At the very bottom
+of the box was a tiny golden feather. No one saw it but Robert, and he
+picked it up and hid it in the breast of his jacket, which had been
+so often the nesting-place of the golden bird. When he went to bed the
+feather was gone. It was the last he ever saw of the Phoenix.
+
+Pinned to the lovely fur cloak that mother had always wanted was a
+paper, and it said--
+
+'In return for the carpet. With gratitude.--P.'
+
+You may guess how father and mother talked it over. They decided at
+last the person who had had the carpet, and whom, curiously enough, the
+children were quite unable to describe, must be an insane millionaire
+who amused himself by playing at being a rag-and-bone man. But the
+children knew better.
+
+They knew that this was the fulfilment, by the powerful Psammead, of the
+last wish of the Phoenix, and that this glorious and delightful boxful
+of treasures was really the very, very, very end of the Phoenix and the
+Carpet.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Phoenix and the Carpet, by E. Nesbit
+
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