[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."
"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."
"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)
"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.