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scratching fiercely to the last, and the sand closed over it.
"I hope we've done right?" said Jane.
"I'm sure we have," said Anthea. "Come on home and tell the boys."
Anthea found Cyril glooming over his paper boats, and told him. Jane told Robert. The two tales were only just ended when mother walked in, hot and dusty. She explained that as she was being driven into Rochester to buy the girls' autumn school-dresses the axle had broken, and but for the narrowness of the lane and the high soft hedges she would have been thrown out. As it was, she was not hurt, but she had had to walk home. "And oh, my dearest dear chicks," she said, "I am simply dying for a cup of tea! Do run and see if the water boils!"
"So you see it's all right," Jane whispered. "She doesn't remember."
"No more does Martha," said Anthea, who had been to ask after the state of the kettle.
As the servants sat at their tea, Beale the gamekeeper dropped in. He brought the welcome news that Lady Chittenden's diamonds had not been lost at all. Lord Chittenden had taken them to be re-set and cleaned, and the maid who knew about it had gone for a holiday. So that was all right.
"I wonder if we ever shall see the Psammead again," said Jane wistfully as they walked in the garden, while mother was putting the Lamb to bed.
"I'm sure we shall," said Cyril, "if you really wished it."
"We've promised never to ask it for another wish," said Anthea.
"I never want to," said Robert earnestly.
They did see it again, of course, but not in this story. And it was not in a sand-pit either, but in a very, very, very different place. It was in a——— But I must say no more.
THE PHOENIX AND THE CARPET
VIII. The Cats, the Cow, and the Burglar
XIV. The Finding of the Treasure
Chapter I.
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 today, to buy something more with. You ought to get a perfectly lovely Catherine 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 fireworks? 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