‘When it is, as you say, a “know time”, there is no more to be said. And your noble brothers would never leave you.’
‘Of course not,’ said Cyril rather quickly. And Robert said so too.
‘I myself,’ the Phoenix went on, ‘am willing to help in any way possible. I will go personally—either by carpet or on the wing—and fetch you anything you can think of to amuse you during the evening. In order to waste no time I could go while you wash up.—Why,’ it went on in a musing voice, ‘does one wash up teacups and wash down the stairs?’
‘You couldn’t wash stairs up, you know,’ said Anthea, ‘unless you began at the bottom and went up feet first as you washed. I wish cook would try that way for a change.’
‘I don’t,’ said Cyril, briefly. ‘I should hate the look of her elastic-side boots sticking up.’
‘This is mere trifling,’ said the Phoenix. ‘Come, decide what I shall fetch for you. I can get you anything you like.’
But of course they couldn’t decide. Many things were suggested—a rocking-horse, jewelled chessmen, an elephant, a bicycle, a motor-car, books with pictures, musical instruments, and many other things. But a musical instrument is agreeable only to the player, unless he has learned to play it really well; books are not sociable, bicycles cannot be ridden without going out of doors, and the same is true of motor-cars and elephants. Only two people can play chess at once with one set of chessmen (and anyway it’s very much too much like lessons for a game), and only one can ride on a rocking-horse. Suddenly, in the midst of the discussion, the Phoenix spread its wings and fluttered to the floor, and from there it spoke.
‘I gather,’ it said, ‘from the carpet, that it wants you to let it go to its old home, where it was born and brought up, and it will return within the hour laden with a number of the most beautiful and delightful products of its native land.’
‘What IS its native land?’
‘I didn’t gather. But since you can’t agree, and time is passing, and the tea-things are not washed down—I mean washed up—’