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 step-mother'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, 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 myself go--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.
[Illustration: "THE CARPET WANTS YOU TO LET IT GO TO ITS OLD HOME."]
"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 Cyril. "It'll stop all this jaw, any way. 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," Cyril 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 flame.
"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
everyone 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. 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.
[Illustration: "EVERYONE HELPED: EVEN THE PHOENIX."]
"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.
"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.
"Cats!" Cyril exclaimed. "I never thought about its being a _Persian_
carpet."
Yet it was now plain that this 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, one hundred and ninety-nine 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."
[Illustration: "THE BEAUTIFUL OBJECTS WHICH IT HAD BROUGHT BACK WERE
CATS."]
"Let's ask the carpet to take them away," said Robert.