Cyril knew that a fence is a receiver of stolen goods, and he replied briskly—
‘I give you my sacred the cats aren’t stolen. What do you make the time?’
‘I ain’t got the time on me,’ said the pal—‘but it was just about chucking-out time as I come by the “Bull and Gate”. I shouldn’t wonder if it was nigh upon one now.’
When the cats had been removed, and the boys and the burglar had parted with warm expressions of friendship, there remained only the cow.
‘She must stay all night,’ said Robert. ‘Cook’ll have a fit when she sees her.’
‘All night?’ said Cyril. ‘Why—it’s tomorrow morning if it’s one. We can have another wish!’
So the carpet was urged, in a hastily written note, to remove the cow to wherever she belonged, and to return to its proper place on the nursery floor. But the cow could not be got to move on to the carpet. So Robert got the clothes line out of the back kitchen, and tied one end very firmly to the cow’s horns, and the other end to a bunched-up corner of the carpet, and said ‘Fire away.’
And the carpet and cow vanished together, and the boys went to bed, tired out and only too thankful that the evening at last was over.
Next morning the carpet lay calmly in its place, but one corner was very badly torn. It was the corner that the cow had been tied on to.