第55章

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

'Well, I MUST say,' mother said, looking at the wishing carpet as it lay, all darned and mended and backed with shiny American cloth, on the floor of the nursery--'I MUST say I've never in my life bought such a bad bargain as that carpet.'

A soft 'Oh!' of contradiction sprang to the lips of Cyril, Robert, Jane, and Anthea.Mother looked at them quickly, and said--'Well, of course, I see you've mended it very nicely, and that was sweet of you, dears.'

'The boys helped too,' said the dears, honourably.

'But, still--twenty-two and ninepence! It ought to have lasted for years.It's simply dreadful now.Well, never mind, darlings, you've done your best.I think we'll have coconut matting next time.A carpet doesn't have an easy life of it in this room, does it?'

'It's not our fault, mother, is it, that our boots are the really reliable kind?' Robert asked the question more in sorrow than in anger.

'No, dear, we can't help our boots,' said mother, cheerfully, 'but we might change them when we come in, perhaps.It's just an idea of mine.I wouldn't dream of scolding on the very first morning after I've come home.Oh, my Lamb, how could you?'

This conversation was at breakfast, and the Lamb had been beautifully good until every one was looking at the carpet, and then it was for him but the work of a moment to turn a glass dish of syrupy blackberry jam upside down on his young head.It was the work of a good many minutes and several persons to get the jam off him again, and this interesting work took people's minds off the carpet, and nothing more was said just then about its badness as a bargain and about what mother hoped for from coconut matting.

When the Lamb was clean again he had to be taken care of while mother rumpled her hair and inked her fingers and made her head ache over the difficult and twisted house-keeping accounts which cook gave her on dirty bits of paper, and which were supposed to explain how it was that cook had only fivepence-half-penny and a lot of unpaid bills left out of all the money mother had sent her for house-keeping.Mother was very clever, but even she could not quite understand the cook's accounts.

The Lamb was very glad to have his brothers and sisters to play with him.He had not forgotten them a bit, and he made them play all the old exhausting games: 'Whirling Worlds', where you swing the baby round and round by his hands; and 'Leg and Wing', where you swing him from side to side by one ankle and one wrist.There was also climbing Vesuvius.In this game the baby walks up you, and when he is standing on your shoulders, you shout as loud as you can, which is the rumbling of the burning mountain, and then tumble him gently on to the floor, and roll him there, which is the destruction of Pompeii.

'All the same, I wish we could decide what we'd better say next time mother says anything about the carpet,' said Cyril, breathlessly ceasing to be a burning mountain.

'Well, you talk and decide,' said Anthea; 'here, you lovely ducky Lamb.Come to Panther and play Noah's Ark.'

The Lamb came with his pretty hair all tumbled and his face all dusty from the destruction of Pompeii, and instantly became a baby snake, hissing and wriggling and creeping in Anthea's arms, as she said--'I love my little baby snake, He hisses when he is awake, He creeps with such a wriggly creep, He wriggles even in his sleep.'

'Crocky,' said the Lamb, and showed all his little teeth.So Anthea went on--'I love my little crocodile, I love his truthful toothful smile;It is so wonderful and wide, I like to see it--FROM OUTSIDE.'

'Well, you see,' Cyril was saying; 'it's just the old bother.

Mother can't believe the real true truth about the carpet, and--'

'You speak sooth, O Cyril,' remarked the Phoenix, coming out from the cupboard where the blackbeetles lived, and the torn books, and the broken slates, and odd pieces of toys that had lost the rest of themselves.'Now hear the wisdom of Phoenix, the son of the Phoenix--'

'There is a society called that,' said Cyril.

'Where is it? And what is a society?' asked the bird.

'It's a sort of joined-together lot of people--a sort of brotherhood--a kind of--well, something very like your temple, you know, only quite different.'

'I take your meaning,' said the Phoenix.'I would fain see these calling themselves Sons of the Phoenix'

'But what about your words of wisdom?'

'Wisdom is always welcome,' said the Phoenix.

'Pretty Polly!' remarked the Lamb, reaching his hands towards the golden speaker.

The Phoenix modestly retreated behind Robert, and Anthea hastened to distract the attention of the Lamb by murmuring--"I love my little baby rabbit;

But oh! he has a dreadful habit Of paddling out among the rocks And soaking both his bunny socks.'

'I don't think you'd care about the sons of the Phoenix, really,'

said Robert.'I have heard that they don't do anything fiery.

They only drink a great deal.Much more than other people, because they drink lemonade and fizzy things, and the more you drink of those the more good you get.'

'In your mind, perhaps,' said Jane; 'but it wouldn't be good in your body.You'd get too balloony.'

The Phoenix yawned.

'Look here,' said Anthea; 'I really have an idea.This isn't like a common carpet.It's very magic indeed.Don't you think, if we put Tatcho on it, and then gave it a rest, the magic part of it might grow, like hair is supposed to do?'

'It might,' said Robert; 'but I should think paraffin would do as well--at any rate as far as the smell goes, and that seems to be the great thing about Tatcho.'

But with all its faults Anthea's idea was something to do, and they did it.

It was Cyril who fetched the Tatcho bottle from father's washhand-stand.But the bottle had not much in it.

'We mustn't take it all,' Jane said, 'in case father's hair began to come off suddenly.If he hadn't anything to put on it, it might all drop off before Eliza had time to get round to the chemist's for another bottle.It would be dreadful to have a bald father, and it would all be our fault.'