'Eh?' said Philip.
'Put me down,' said the voice again. It was such a teeny tiny voice that he could only just hear it. It was unlikely, of course, that the voice could have been Mr. Noah's; but then whose else could it be? On the bare chance that it might have been Mr. Noah who spoke—more unlikely things had happened before, as you know—Philip set the little wooden figure down on the chess-table. It stood there, wooden as ever.
'Put who down?' Philip asked. And then, before his eyes, the little wooden figure grew alive, stooped to pick up the yellow disc of wood on which Noah's Ark people stand, rolled it up like a mat, put it under his arm and began to walk towards the side of the table where Philip stood.
He knelt down to bring his ears nearer the little live moving thing.
'What did you say?' he asked, for he fancied that Mr. Noah had again spoken.
'I said, what's the matter?' said the little voice.
'It's Lucy. She's lost and it's my fault. And I can only just hear you. It hurts my ears hearing you,' complained Philip.
'There's an ear-trumpet in a box on the middle of the cabinet,' he could just hear the teeny tiny voice say; 'it belonged to a great-aunt. Get it out and listen through it.'
Philip got it out. It was an odd curly thing, and at first he could not be sure which end he ought to put to his ear. But he tried both ends, and on the second trial he heard quite a loud, strong, big voice say: