The hands were given.
“But oh,” said Elfrida, “this is different from all the rest; that was a game, and this is—this is——”
“This is real, my sock-lamb,” said the Mouldiwarp, with unusual kindness. “Now your Cousin Richard will help you, and when you get your father back, as I make no doubts but what you will, then your Cousin Dick he’ll go back to his own time and generation, and be seen no more, and your father won’t never guess that you was there so close to him as you will be.”
“I don’t believe we shall,” said Elfrida, nodding stubbornly, and for the first time in this story she did not believe.
“Oh, well,” said the Mouldiwarp bitterly, “of course if you don’t believe you’ll find him, you’ll not find him. That’s plain as a currant loaf.”
“But I believe we shall find him,” said Edred, “and Elfrida’s only a girl. It might be only a dream, of course,” he added thoughtfully. “Don’t you think I don’t know that. But if it’s a dream, I’m going to stay in it. I’m not going back to Arden without my father.”
“Do you understand,” said the Mouldiwarp, “that if I take you into any other time or place in your own century, it’s the full stop? There isn’t any more.”
“It means there’s no chance of our getting into the past again, to look for treasure or anything?”
“Oh, chance!” said the Mouldiwarp. “I mean no magic clock’ll not never be made for you no more, that’s what I mean. And if you find your father you’ll not be Lord Arden any more, either!”
I hope it will not shock you very much when I tell you that at that thought a distinct pang shot through Edred’s breast. He really felt it, in his flesh-and-blood breast, like a sharp knife. It was dreadful of him to think of such a thing, when there was a chance of his getting his daddy in exchange for just a title. It was dreadful; but I am a truthful writer, and I must own the truth. In one moment he felt the most dreadful things—that it was all nonsense, and perhaps daddy wasn’t there, and it was no good looking for him any way, and he wanted to go on being Lord Arden, and hadn’t they better go home.