‘I’ll get Ingoldsby,’ said Anthea, hastily. ‘You turn up the hearthrug.’
So they traced strange figures on the linoleum, where the hearthrug had kept it clean. They traced them with chalk that Robert had nicked from the top of the mathematical master’s desk at school. You know, of course, that it is stealing to take a new stick of chalk, but it is not wrong to take a broken piece, so long as you only take one. (I do not know the reason of this rule, nor who made it.) And they chanted all the gloomiest songs they could think of. And, of course, nothing happened. So then Anthea said, ‘I’m sure a magic fire ought to be made of sweet-smelling wood, and have magic gums and essences and things in it.’
‘I don’t know any sweet-smelling wood, except cedar,’ said Robert; ‘but I’ve got some ends of cedar-wood lead pencil.’
So they burned the ends of lead pencil. And still nothing happened.
‘Let’s burn some of the eucalyptus oil we have for our colds,’ said Anthea.
And they did. It certainly smelt very strong. And they burned lumps of camphor out of the big chest. It was very bright, and made a horrid black smoke, which looked very magical. But still nothing happened. Then they got some clean tea-cloths from the dresser drawer in the kitchen, and waved them over the magic chalk-tracings, and sang ‘The Hymn of the Moravian Nuns at Bethlehem’, which is very impressive. And still nothing happened. So they waved more and more wildly, and Robert’s tea-cloth caught the golden egg and whisked it off the mantelpiece, and it fell into the fender and rolled under the grate.
‘Oh, crikey!’ said more than one voice.
And every one instantly fell down flat on its front to look under the grate, and there lay the egg, glowing in a nest of hot ashes.
‘It’s not smashed, anyhow,’ said Robert, and he put his hand under the grate and picked up the egg. But the egg was much hotter than any one would have believed it could possibly get in such a short time, and Robert had to drop it with a cry of ‘Bother!’ It fell on the top bar of the grate, and bounced right into the glowing red-hot heart of the fire.
‘The tongs!’ cried Anthea. But, alas, no one could remember where they were. Every one had forgotten that the tongs had last been used to fish up the doll’s teapot from the bottom of the water-butt, where the Lamb had dropped it. So the nursery tongs were resting between the water-butt and the dustbin, and cook refused to lend the kitchen ones.