She produced the bundle. And this time Philip was really touched.
'Now I do call that something like,' he said. 'The seaweed dress is all right here, but you never know what you may have to go through when you're doing adventures. There might be thorns or snakes or anything. I'm jolly glad to get my boots back too. I say, come on. Let's go to Helen's palace and get a banquet ready. I know there'll have to be a banquet. There always is, here. I know a first-rate bun-tree quite near here.'
'The cocoa-nut-ice plants looked beautiful as I came along,' said Lucy. 'What a lovely island it is. And you made it!'
'No gas,' said Philip warningly. 'Helen and I made it.'
'She's the dearest darling,' said Lucy.
'Oh, well,' said Philip with resignation, 'if you must gas, gas about her.'
The banquet was all that you can imagine of interesting and magnificent. And Philip was, of course, the hero of the hour. And when the banquet was finished and the last guest had departed to its own house—for the houses on the island were of course all ready to be occupied, furnished to the last point of comfort, with pin-cushions full of pins in every room, Mr. Noah and Lucy and Philip sat down on the terrace steps among the pink roses for a last little talk.
'Because,' said Philip, 'we shall start the first thing in the morning. So please will you tell me now what the next deed is that I have to do?'
'Will you go by ark?' Mr. Noah asked, rolling up his yellow mat to make an elbow rest and leaning on it; 'I shall be delighted.'
'I thought,' said Philip, 'we might go in the Lightning Loose. I've never sailed her yet, you know. Do you think I could?'