“You have a straightforward nature,” said the Mouldiwarp. “Well, well, I must say you’ve got yourself into a nice hole!”
“It would be a very nice hole,” said Elfrida eagerly, “if only the panel were open. I wouldn’t mind how long I stayed here then. That’s funny, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said the Mole. “Well, if you hadn’t quarrelled I could get you into another time—some time when the panel was open—and you could just walk out. You shouldn’t quarrel. It makes everything different. It puts dust into the works. It stops the wheels of the clock.”
“The clock!” said Elfrida slowly. “Couldn’t that work backwards?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said the Mole.
“I don’t know that I quite know myself,” Elfrida explained; “but the daisy-clock. You sit on the second hand and there isn’t any time—and yet there’s lots where you’re not sitting. If I could sit on the daisy-clock the time wouldn’t be anything before some one comes to let me out. But I can’t get to the daisy-clock, even if you’d make it for me. So that’s no good.”
“You are a very clever little girl,” said the Mouldiwarp, “and all the clocks in the world aren’t made of daisies. Move the tables and chairs back against the wall; we’ll see what we can do for you.”
While Elfrida was carrying out this order—the white Mole stood on its hind feet and called out softly in a language she did not understand. Others understood it though, it seemed, for a white pigeon fluttered in through the window, and then another and another, till the room seemed full of circling wings and gentle cooings, and a shower of soft, white feathers fell like snow.
Then the Mole was silent, and one by one the white pigeons sailed back through the window into the blue and gold world of out-of-doors.
“Get up on a chair and keep out of the way,” said the Mouldiwarp. And Elfrida did.