第25章

THE TEMPLE

'I wish we could find the Phoenix,' said Jane.'It's much better company than the carpet.'

'Beastly ungrateful, little kids are,' said Cyril.

'No, I'm not; only the carpet never says anything, and it's so helpless.It doesn't seem able to take care of itself.It gets sold, and taken into the sea, and things like that.You wouldn't catch the Phoenix getting sold.'

It was two days after the bazaar.Every one was a little cross--some days are like that, usually Mondays, by the way.And this was a Monday.

'I shouldn't wonder if your precious Phoenix had gone off for good,' said Cyril; 'and I don't know that I blame it.Look at the weather!'

'It's not worth looking at,' said Robert.And indeed it wasn't.

'The Phoenix hasn't gone--I'm sure it hasn't,' said Anthea.'I'll have another look for it.'

Anthea looked under tables and chairs, and in boxes and baskets, in mother's work-bag and father's portmanteau, but still the Phoenix showed not so much as the tip of one shining feather.

Then suddenly Robert remembered how the whole of the Greek invocation song of seven thousand lines had been condensed by him into one English hexameter, so he stood on the carpet and chanted--'Oh, come along, come along, you good old beautiful Phoenix,'

and almost at once there was a rustle of wings down the kitchen stairs, and the Phoenix sailed in on wide gold wings.

'Where on earth HAVE you been?' asked Anthea.'I've looked everywhere for you.'

'Not EVERYWHERE,' replied the bird, 'because you did not look in the place where I was.Confess that that hallowed spot was overlooked by you.'

'WHAT hallowed spot?' asked Cyril, a little impatiently, for time was hastening on, and the wishing carpet still idle.

'The spot,' said the Phoenix, 'which I hallowed by my golden presence was the Lutron.'

'The WHAT?'

'The bath--the place of washing.'

'I'm sure you weren't,' said Jane.'I looked there three times and moved all the towels.'

'I was concealed,' said the Phoenix, 'on the summit of a metal column--enchanted, I should judge, for it felt warm to my golden toes, as though the glorious sun of the desert shone ever upon it.'

'Oh, you mean the cylinder,' said Cyril: 'it HAS rather a comforting feel, this weather.And now where shall we go?'

And then, of course, the usual discussion broke out as to where they should go and what they should do.And naturally, every one wanted to do something that the others did not care about.

'I am the eldest,' Cyril remarked, 'let's go to the North Pole.'

'This weather! Likely!' Robert rejoined.'Let's go to the Equator.'

'I think the diamond mines of Golconda would be nice,' said Anthea;'don't you agree, Jane?'

'No, I don't,' retorted Jane, 'I don't agree with you.I don't agree with anybody.'

The Phoenix raised a warning claw.

'If you cannot agree among yourselves, I fear I shall have to leave you,' it said.

'Well, where shall we go? You decide!' said all.

'If I were you,' said the bird, thoughtfully, 'I should give the carpet a rest.Besides, you'll lose the use of your legs if you go everywhere by carpet.Can't you take me out and explain your ugly city to me?'

'We will if it clears up,' said Robert, without enthusiasm.'Just look at the rain.And why should we give the carpet a rest?'

'Are you greedy and grasping, and heartless and selfish?' asked the bird, sharply.

'NO!' said Robert, with indignation.

'Well then!' said the Phoenix.'And as to the rain--well, I am not fond of rain myself.If the sun knew _I_ was here--he's very fond of shining on me because I look so bright and golden.He always says I repay a little attention.Haven't you some form of words suitable for use in wet weather?'

'There's "Rain, rain, go away,"' said Anthea; 'but it never DOESgo.'

'Perhaps you don't say the invocation properly,' said the bird.

'Rain, rain, go away, Come again another day, Little baby wants to play,'

said Anthea.

'That's quite wrong; and if you say it in that sort of dull way, Ican quite understand the rain not taking any notice.You should open the window and shout as loud as you can--'Rain, rain, go away, Come again another day;Now we want the sun, and so, Pretty rain, be kind and go!

'You should always speak politely to people when you want them to do things, and especially when it's going away that you want them to do.And to-day you might add--'Shine, great sun, the lovely Phoe-

Nix is here, and wants to be Shone on, splendid sun, by thee!'

'That's poetry!' said Cyril, decidedly.

'It's like it,' said the more cautious Robert.

'I was obliged to put in "lovely",' said the Phoenix, modestly, 'to make the line long enough.'

'There are plenty of nasty words just that length,' said Jane; but every one else said 'Hush!' And then they opened the window and shouted the seven lines as loud as they could, and the Phoenix said all the words with them, except 'lovely', and when they came to that it looked down and coughed bashfully.

The rain hesitated a moment and then went away.

'There's true politeness,' said the Phoenix, and the next moment it was perched on the window-ledge, opening and shutting its radiant wings and flapping out its golden feathers in such a flood of glorious sunshine as you sometimes have at sunset in autumn time.

People said afterwards that there had not been such sunshine in December for years and years and years.

'And now,' said the bird, 'we will go out into the city, and you shall take me to see one of my temples.'

'Your temples?'

'I gather from the carpet that I have many temples in this land.'

'I don't see how you CAN find anything out from it,' said Jane: 'it never speaks.'

'All the same, you can pick up things from a carpet,' said the bird; 'I've seen YOU do it.And I have picked up several pieces of information in this way.That papyrus on which you showed me my picture--I understand that it bears on it the name of the street of your city in which my finest temple stands, with my image graved in stone and in metal over against its portal.'

'You mean the fire insurance office,' said Robert.'It's not really a temple, and they don't--'