 CHAPTER VI. 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 Zero. Glad! It was breakfast time, and mother's letter, telling them how they were all going for Christmas to their aunts at Lindhurst, and how father and mother would meet them there, having been read by everyone, 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'd do when you've been to three parties in a week, like we did at Granny's once, and extras in between, toys and chocks 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 Zero, 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. Morty, 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 a 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. Everyone 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's 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 bear 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 the 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 they plunged in perfect darkness. Are you all there? said Anthea, breathlessly through the black dark. Everyone owned that it was there. Where are we? How shivery and wet it is. I've put my hands in a puddle. Has anyone gotten you 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 everyone, 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 one day. I kept them secret well, didn't I? Oh, yes, said Cyril, with fine scorn. I found them the Sunday after, when I was feeling in your Norfolk's for the knife you borrowed off me, but I thought you'd only sneak them for the 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 in 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. 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 was languished here for years and years, and we could take him out in 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 could never 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 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 someone 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 why 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 onto the following feet of Jane, and everybody screamed, oh, what is it? I've only bashed my head in, said Robert, when he had grown 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 the paving stone. Stairs aren't made to lead just to paving stones, as the 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 it 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 to 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 the 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. Everyone climbed out, but there was not room for everyone 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 trapped 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 bowels 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 colored, 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 travelers should come to this little rest-house and 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 heart'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. Cyrils and Roberts 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 gray dress and a black silk apron. Her eyes were small and gray 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 did 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 are from the England, she cried. I love so much the England. Mais entrez, entrez dans tous, enterz-en, interole. One essuèze his feet on the carpet. She pointed to the mat. We only wanted to ask. I shall say you all that 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 the 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 to the past. This warm welcome embarrassed everyone, 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 lacy, that Robert would rather have died than wear, but the little French boy was much younger than Robert. Oh, how pretty! said everyone! But no one meant the little French boy, with the velvety short knickerbockers and velvety short hair. What everyone 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 gentile? said the lady, suit 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, Hurray! Then there was a struggle in the breast of Robert, and out fluttered the phoenix, spread his gold wings, and flew to the top of the Christmas tree and perched there. Ah, que c'est gentil! cried the lady. 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, c'est pré-tipaire à guite, said the lady. Que n'est-ce ce style of oseur-singes? And the phoenix replied, this time in English. Why are you so 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 was 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 who's that castle is on the hill. Oh, my little angel, said the poor lady, sniffing, today and for hundreds of years the castle is to us, to our family. Tomorrow it must that I sell it to some strangers, and my little Andri, who ignores all, he will not have never the land's paternal. But what we knew is, Father, my brother, Monsieur de Marquis, has spent much of money, and it 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 Andri for life. But all that, my children, is but the account of the face. 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 he 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 her 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 Monsieur 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 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 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. C'est, 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, S'est vrai, moceau, venez donc voir. 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 Saint-Jean-of-Luz. Now, said Robert, I will go first and show you where it is. So they prized 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 everyone 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 little 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. When you hear that the four children found themselves at Waterloo Station quite untaken 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 Lindhurst. 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 Rufa 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 and all, and had bumped against old gentlemen, and stared in the faces of the ladies, and had been shoved by people in a hurry, and by your leave by porters with trucks, and were quite, quite sure that Aunt Emma was not there. Then suddenly the true truth of what he'd 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 Aunt Emma. Yes, said Cyril, and precious, please, those Jevenses will be to see us in our traps. Aunt Emma, indeed, was staying with some Jevenses. 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 will be pleased to see us if we went back, said Jane. Yes, she would. But she think it was not right to show she was pleased, because its Bob's fault were not met. Don't I know the sort of things, said Cyril? Besides, we've no tin. Nope, 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 out we really got home all right. You know Aunty was only going to take us home in a cab. I believe we ought to go to Croydon, Aunty insisted. Aunt Emma would be out to a dead cert, said Robert. Those Jevenses go to the theatre every afternoon, I believe. Besides, there's the phoenix at home, and the carpet. High votes we call a four-wheel cab man. A four-wheel cab man was called. His cab was one of the old fashion kind with straw on the bottom, and he was asked by Aunty 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 Grandpa had given Cyril for Christmas. And this cast a gloom, but Cyril would never have stooped to argue about a cab fare, for fear the cab man should think he was not accustomed to take cabs whenever he wanted them. For a reason that was something like this, he told the cab man to put the luggage on the steps, and waited till the wheels of the grower 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, everyone felt 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 Antia, 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. There's a terrible thing to be locked out of your own house on a dark, muggy, January evening. There's 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've suffocated in their beds. Father always said they would some day, said Robert cheerfully. Let's go and fetch a policeman, said Antia, 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 Antia. It said it wanted to stay in the bathroom cupboard, and I thought it would be all right, because the servants never cleaned that out. But if it's gone and got out and been choked by gas, and besides, directly we opened the door, we shall be choked too. I knew we ought to have gone to Antia and Croydon. Oh, Cyril, I wish we had. Let's go now. Shut up, said her brother briefly. There's someone rattling the latch inside. Everyone listened with all its ears, and everyone stood back as far from the doors the steps would allow. The latch rattled, and clicked. Then the flap of the letter box lifted itself. Everyone saw it by the flickering light of the gas lamp that shone through the leafless lime tree by the gate. How golden eyes seemed to wink at them to the letter slit, and a cautious beak whispered, Are you alone? It's the phoenix, said everyone, and a voice so joyous and so full of relief as to be sort of a 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 round your bread lies, It isn't fastened. Right, oh! said Cyril, and Antia added, I wish you'd meet us there, dear phoenix. The children crept round to the pantry window. Is it at the side of the house, and is the green gate labelled tradesman's entrance, which has 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're 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 Antia and Jane. So in almost no time all four were in the narrow gravel passage that runs between that house and the next. Then Robert made a back, and Cyril hoisted himself up, and got his knicker-buckered 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're 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 Antia, 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 led 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're afraid of burglars, or of anything else for that matter, and when all the gas jets were lighted, and it was quite clear that the phoenix had made no mistake, and that Eliza and Cook were really out, and there was no one there in the house except the four children, and the phoenix, and the carpet, and the black beetles who lived in the cupboards on each side of the nursery fireplace. These last were very pleased that the children had come home again, especially when Antia had lighted the nursery fire. But, as usual, the children treated the loving little black beetles 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 with a paper and a fire, someone has laid ready, but how to lay in light of fire all by yourself. I will tell you how Antia did it, and if you ever have to light one yourself, you may remember how it was 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, Antia knocked her knuckle and made it bleed. Then she laid the largest and handsome as cinders in the bottom of the grate. Then she took a sheet of old newspaper, who ought never to light a fire with today'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 their 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 lied to 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 fire is a light in a different and prettier way. But it is always good to wash your hands and face afterwards, wherever you are. While Anthe was delighting the poor little black beacons 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 teaish meal. There was tea, certainly, for Anthe'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 everyone 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 had 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 night. The Phoenix perched on Robert's chair, and listened kindly and politely to all they had to tell it about their visit to Lindhurst, and, underneath the table, by just stretching a toe down rather far, the faithful carpet could be felt by all. Even by Jane, those 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, hostest to her 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 have gone without leave, said Antia, however many relations they have, or however old they are. But I suppose we ought to wash up. It's not our business about to leave, said Cyril Firmley, 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 sunrise of 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 Antia, 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 Antia 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 silent said many things. I don't see, Robert at the beginning, when Antia interrupted. I'm quite sure. Sometimes you just think of things wrong, and sometimes you know. And this is a no time. The phoenix turned kind golden eyes on her, and opened a friendly beak to say, When it is, as you say, a no 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 an amusing voice, does one wash up teacups, and wash down the stairs. You couldn't wash stairs up, you know, said Antia, unless he began at the bottom, and went up feet first as he 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, jewel-chestman, 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's 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, the three things are not washed down—I mean washed up. I votes we do, Sir Robert. It'll stop all this jaw, anyway. 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 Antia. Or a Turkish towel, said Jane. Nonsense! Robert urged. It said, beautiful and delightful. And towel 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 newborn dream. Why, you just write your wish in a paper, and pin it on the carpet. So a leaf was torn from Antia'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, Antia, Jane. Then the paper was laid on the carpet. Writing down, please, said the Phoenix, and the carpet can't read a paper whose backs has 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 and 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 Antia 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 in the line that goes across the scullery. If you were a duchess's child, or a king's, or a person of high social positions, child, you will perhaps not know the difference between a dish-cloth and a tea-cloth. But in that case, your nurse had 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 tower 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's-engine whistlers like a steam sirens. The carpets come back, said Robert, and the others felt that he was right. But what has it brought with it? asked Jane. 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 on my golden eyes. So Cyril looked. I see something gray 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 turn 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 it being a Persian carpet. Yes, it was now plain that it was so. For the beautiful objects which it had brought back were cats, Persian cats, gray Persian cats, and there were, as I've said, a 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 and mewing pushishness, 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're hungry, said the phoenix. If you were to feed them, we haven't anything to feed them with, said Anthony and the spare, and she stroked the nearest Persian back. Oh, pussies, do be quiet, we can't hear ourselves tink. 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. Unvaluable, 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 made 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 macintosh when you shake it, and the carpet disappeared. Unless you have had 199 well-grown Persian cats in one small room, all hungry, and all saying so an unmistakable mews, you can form but a poor idea of the noise that now deafened the children and the phoenix. The cats didn't seem to have been at all properly brought up. They seemed to have no idea of its being mistaken manners to ask for meals in a strange house, let alone 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 happened so quickly it quite unmans me. This was a danger for the children had not thought. Creep in! cried Robert, opening his jacket. And the phoenix crept in, only just in time. For green eyes it glared, pink noses it sniffed, white whiskers it 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 Antia. Oh, take them away! Take yourself away, said the phoenix, and me. I wish we never had a carpet, said Antia, 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 will have a better chance in the dark, he said. The mewing seized. Everyone listened in breathless silence. We all know that cats eat rats. It's 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 in one side because of the draught. What a fun he sent, he said, and as he spoke a lantern flashed its light through the wind 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 tipped toe to the window, and spoke through the pain that had been a little cracked since Cyril accidentally knocked out a walking stick when he was playing at balancing it on his nose. It was after they'd been to the 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 must 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 tested them before deciding 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, meet 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 for 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? End of Chapter 7. Persian Muse Chapter 8 of the Phoenix and the Carpet This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Porick. The Phoenix and the Carpet by E. Nesbit. Chapter 8. The Cats, the Cow, and the Burglar The nursery was full of Persian cats and muskrats that had been brought there by the wishing carpet. The cats were mewing, and the muskrats 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, you yelling and catawalling? I tell you, you've got a cat here, and so on'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 muse and the squeaks grew softer, and in the comparative silence Cyril said, it's true, and 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 Madley. Perhaps they're only dream cats. Ah, dream-catch 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-keeping's. 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'd been making itself small on the pot shelf under the dresser, among the saw-spin lids and the fish-cattle, 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! and he 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 not going to see what's in that room beyond there, and his voice was drowned in a wild burst of mewing and squeaking. As soon as it died down all four children began to explain at once, and though the squeak 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. Stoic! he said at last. I'm a-going into the next room in the execution of my duty. I'm a-going to use my eyes, and my ears have gone off their chumps, what we 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 anyone 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 someone's being killed outside. For Robert had a feeling inside him that told him quite plainly who it was that was screaming. You young rip! said the policeman. I'll settle with you by and by. 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 knicker-bocker loudly with his palm, and said, Good old Phoenix! I should know it's golden voice anywhere! And then everyone 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 murder 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're 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'm worn out. It was Cyril who wrote the paper that told the carpet to take away the rats and bring milk, because it 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 a gloom as she pinned the paper face downwards on the carpet. Is there such thing as a musk-cow? she added anxiously, as the carpet shriveled and vanished. I do hope not. Perhaps it really 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 a bitter rejoinder of Robert, who'd 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 muse 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 a say milk. They can't understand English, said Jane. You forget they're Persian cats, panther. Well, said Anthea, rather sharply, 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 meowies, and croquet, and fiancé. Oh, pussies do be quiet. Let's stroke them as hard as we can with both hands, and perhaps they'll stop. So everyone stroked gray fur till their hands were tired. And as soon as the 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 of the gas-light, and moved 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 stray duchess, till someone brought a saucer for the milk, and someone else tried to milk the cow into it. Milking is very difficult. You may think it's 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, so the occasion arise. Anthea, holding the saucer, now advanced towards the cow. She remembered to have heard the 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 Cowin. 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 gray, 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'd 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 a 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, with 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 around Jane and herself, while Robert and Cyril had to struggle, silent and brief, but fierce, for the larger share of the fur-heart-rog. It's 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 door-steps, 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 door-step 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 pillowcases, 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 it could not have borne, now seemed quite a comfort. They snuggled down in the sofa-blanket, and Cyril threw the fur-heart-rug 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 the 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 heart-rug. 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'll 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 dare say I shall again some day. And she fell asleep. Jane was also sleeping. It was Jane who awoke at 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 fall 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 in 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 stood in Jane's shoes, you would no doubt have run away in them, appealing to the police and neighbours what horrid screams. But Jane knew better. She had read a great many nice stories about burglars, as well as some effecting pieces of poetry. And she knew that no burglar will ever hurt a little girl if he needs 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 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 in the effecting 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 through doing here, Mr. Wabba? and whether any other kind of talk would do? Then she heard the burglar draw a long breath, and he spoke. It's a judgment, he said. So, help me, Bob of it ain't. Oh, here's a thing to wap into a chap. Oh, makes it come home to you don't in neither. Cats and cats and 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 her so much. Here, 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 there, it's downstairs parlour. But them cats! Oh, take him away! Take him away! Oh, chuck the old show! Oh, take him 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. Oh, love me! exclaimed the man. If here ain't another of them. Are you real, miss? Or something I'll wake up from presently? I'm quite real, said Jane. Relieved to find that a list was not needed to make the burglar understand her. And so, shedded, heard the cats. Then to send for the police. Send for the police, and I'll go quiet. If you ain't no realer than them cats, I'm done, Sponchuk, out of time. Send for the police. I'll go quiet. One thing. There will not be room for half them cats and no sellers ever I see. He ran his fingers through his hair, which was short, and his eyes wandered wildly round the room full of cats. Burglar, said Jane, kindly and softly, if he didn't like cats, what did you come here for? Send for the police. Was the unfortunate criminals on your reply? I'd rather you would. Honest, I'd rather. I'd 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 bit too thick. Look here, said Jane. I won't call the police. And I'm 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 cat was like somebody's daisy that you used to know? Wish I might 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 an 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 washbowl 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 here's a plant! Here's a 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, 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. Oh, shall I have a head and a half in the morning? No blooming air! 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 it seized from mewing, and were crowding round the cow, were expressions of hope and anticipation in 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 founding 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, as jolly lucky I'm a good shot, that's all. He pranced off and he got the cat-bags off his face, thought we'd bolted. And here we are. The gentle sameness of the milk swishing into the hand-bowl seemed to soothe a burglar very much. He went on milking in a sort of happy dream, while the children got a cap and ladle the warm milk out into the pie-dishes and plates, and platters and saucers, and set them down to the music of purge and purrs and lappings. It makes me think of old times, said the burglar, smearing his ragged coat cuff across his eyes, about the apples and 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 the softened mood, Jane said, I wish you'd tell us how you came to choose our house for your burgling to-night. I'm awfully glad you did. You have been so kind. I don't know what we should have done without you, should it 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. Well, I don't know but what it won't be my last. For this year, cow, she reminds me of my father, and I know how he'd have oided me if I'd laid hands on a penny that 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 how you come by with them cats, and why you don't like police. So I'll give myself away free, and trust your noble arts. You'd best bail out a bit, the pan's gettin' foolish. I was a sellin' oranges off me barrel, for I ain't a burglar by trade, though you have used the name so free. And there was a lady but three apenet off me, and while she was a pickin' of them out, very carefully indeed, and I'm always glad when them sort gets a few over-op ones, there was two other ladies talking over the fence, and one of them said to the other one of them, just like this. I've told both girls to come, and they can toss him at Marie and Jane, because their boss and his missus is miles away, and the kids too. So they can just lock up the ass and leave the gas a-burning, so no one won't know, and get back broad and airy by eleven o'clock, and we'll make a night of it, missus, process, so we will. I'm just going to run out to pop the letter in the post, and then the lady what had chosen the three apoettes so carefully, she said, Lord Mrs. Wixon, I wonder at you, and your hands all over suds. This good gentleman'll slip it into the post for you, I'll be bound, see now I'm a customer of his. So they give me the letter, and of course I read the direction what was written on it, before I shoved it into the post. And then, when I'd sold me Barrowful, I was a-going-own with the chink-a-me pocket, and I'm blowed of some bloom and thieve and beggar, did nick the lot while I was just a wet-nummy whistle, recalling of Orange's dry work, nick the bloom and loy did, me but not a fadden to take home to me brother and his missus. How awful! said Anthea, with much sympathy. Horrible indeed, miss, I believe you! the burglary joined with deep feeling. You don't know her temper when she's roused. And I'm sure I hope you never may know either, and I'd add only Orange's off of them. So it came back to me what was wrote on the Angrelope, and I says to myself, Why not, seen as I've been done myself? And if that keeps two slavies, there must be some pickens. And so here I am, but them cats, they've brought me back to the ways of honestness. Never know more! Look here, said Cyril, these cats are very valuable, very indeed, and we will give them all to you if only we'll take them away. Oh, I see they're a greedy 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 Antia, 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 misses 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 owe, and I don't mind lending an open end. I don't ask how you come by them, but I've got a pal, he's a mark on cats. Well fetch him along, and if he thinks they'd fetch something above their skins, I don't mind doing you a kindness. He 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 a 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 in the barrow, mewing, indeed, but with mews too sleepy to attract public attention. Oh, I'm a fence! That's what I am! said the burglar gloomily. Oh, I never thought I'd come down to this! And all are cores of my kind art! Cyril knew that a fence is a receiver of stolen goods, and he replied briskly. I give you my sacred, the cat's art and stolen. What do you make the time? I ain't got the time on me! said the pal. But it was just a bad chuckle-out, Tom, as I come by the bullen gate. I shouldn't wonder if it was nigh on 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 fish when she sees her. All night, said Cyril, why, it's to-morrow 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, Far 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. End of chapter 8