"You've come at last," he crowed. "It's just time for tea. Come along!" and he fluttered down to the ground beside them.
"How did you get here?" asked George.
"I've been here all the time," answered the weathercock. "Where else should I be?"
George gazed all round him; then he caught sight of a little house he thought he knew, with the smoke curling up from its chimneys. "Why, that's my house! How did it get here?"
"Really, you do ask a lot of questions," complained the little cock. "The house hasn't moved. You've been moving. Didn't you want to get back here?"
"Yes, of course, but—oh, well, I don't understand. I thought we were going somewhere else all the time."
"There is no such place as 'somewhere else' that I ever heard of," said the cock. "Where did you expect to get to? You said you wanted to get home, and here you are, aren't you?"
Alexander ran on ahead and disappeared through the garden gate. George waited for a moment to watch the cock fly up to his little perch on the roof again, and then went in. Tea was spread on the table just as usual. Oh, it was good to be home again! There was no time for talking. George put down his sack, which he had held in his hand all this time and quite forgotten. What's the good of talking at tea-time, except to say "Yes, please," and "Thank you"? Besides, it is rude to talk with your mouth full, and if you are enjoying your tea your mouth is full all the time. Anyway, that is what George thought. He didn't even stop to see if Alexander was getting anything to eat.
At last he finished, and Alexander, who had found some biscuits somewhere, licked the last crumb from his nose.
"Don't forget your sack, George," he said, in a queer kind of voice.