'Of course I meant to come. You know you promised.'
So that was settled.
'And now,' said Mr. Noah, rubbing his hands with the cheerful air of one who has a great deal to do and is going to enjoy doing it, 'we must fit you out a proper expedition, for the Dwellers by the Sea are a very long way off. What would you like to ride on?'
'A horse,' said Philip, truly pleased. He said horse, because he did not want to ride a donkey, and he had never seen any one ride any animal but these two.
'That's right,' Mr. Noah said, patting him on the back. 'I was so afraid you'd ask for a bicycle. And there's a dreadful law here—it was made by mistake, but there it is—that if any one asks for machinery they have to have it and keep on using it. But as to a horse. Well, I'm not sure. You see, you have to ride right across the pebbly waste, and it's a good three days' journey. But come along to the stables.'
You know the kind of stables they would be? The long shed with stalls such as you had, when you were little, for your little wooden horses and carts? Only there were not only horses here, but every sort of animal that has ever been ridden on. Elephants, camels, donkeys, mules, bulls, goats, zebras, tortoises, ostriches, bisons, and pigs. And in the last stall of all, which was not of common wood but of beaten silver, stood the very Hippogriff himself, with his long, white mane and his long, white tail, and his gentle, beautiful eyes. His long, white wings were folded neatly on his satin-smooth back, and how he and the stall got here was more than Philip could guess. All the others were Noah's Ark animals, alive, of course, but still Noah's Arky beyond possibility of mistake. But the Hippogriff was not Noah's Ark at all.
'He came,' Mr. Noah explained, 'out of a book. One of the books you used to build your city with.'
'Can't we have him?' Lucy said; 'he looks such a darling.' And the Hippogriff turned his white velvet nose and nuzzled against her in affectionate acknowledgment of the compliment.
'Not if you both go,' Mr. Noah explained. 'He cannot carry more than one person at a time unless one is an Earl. No, if I may advise, I should say go by camel.'
'Can the camel carry two?'