"Well, first of all I must write your name inside the lid. Everyone who is allowed to see into the temple is going to be written down there. You're not to look until I've done it." She wrote the name as neatly as she could with a long new pencil, beautifully pointed. "Now you can look," she said.
"It isn't anything at all. It's only three old rings."
"Yes, but they're magic rings."
"Pooh! They can't do anything."
"Can't they?" said Netta with immense indifference, as she replaced the lid. She sat on the table, swinging her slim legs, and hummed provokingly.
"I know they can't do anything," Jimmy repeated.
Netta looked away from him, up at the flies circling on the white ceiling. Her eyes grew big and meditative. She continued humming.
"Well," said Jimmy, desperately, "what can they do?"
"Every night when you're in bed and asleep, and when everybody else is in bed and asleep, they can come out of the temple and run about. They run up walls and along the roofs of houses. And they can fly, too. They fly just like—like flies."
"I don't believe it. You're being a liar, and you know where liars go to. You ought to be punished."