The Phoenix opened and shut its wings thoughtfully.
‘Your stockings,’ it said, ‘are much less important than they now appear to you. But the carpet—look at the bare worn patches, look at the great rent at yonder corner. The carpet has been your faithful friend—your willing servant. How have you requited its devoted service?’
‘Dear Phoenix,’ Anthea urged, ‘don’t talk in that horrid lecturing tone. You make me feel as if I’d done something wrong. And really it is a wishing carpet, and we haven’t done anything else to it—only wishes.’
‘Only wishes,’ repeated the Phoenix, ruffling its neck feathers angrily, ‘and what sort of wishes? Wishing people to be in a good temper, for instance. What carpet did you ever hear of that had such a wish asked of it? But this noble fabric, on which you trample so recklessly’ (every one removed its boots from the carpet and stood on the linoleum), ‘this carpet never flinched. It did what you asked, but the wear and tear must have been awful. And then last night—I don’t blame you about the cats and the rats, for those were its own choice; but what carpet could stand a heavy cow hanging on to it at one corner?’
‘I should think the cats and rats were worse,’ said Robert, ‘look at all their claws.’
‘Yes,’ said the bird, ‘eleven thousand nine hundred and forty of them—I daresay you noticed? I should be surprised if these had not left their mark.’
‘Good gracious,’ said Jane, sitting down suddenly on the floor, and patting the edge of the carpet softly; ‘do you mean it’s WEARING OUT?’
‘Its life with you has not been a luxurious one,’ said the Phoenix.
‘French mud twice. Sand of sunny shores twice. Soaking in southern seas once. India once. Goodness knows where in Persia once. Musk-rat-land once. And once, wherever the cow came from. Hold your carpet up to the light, and with cautious tenderness, if YOU please.’
With cautious tenderness the boys held the carpet up to the light; the girls looked, and a shiver of regret ran through them as they saw how those eleven thoousand nine hundred and forty claws had run through the carpet. It was full of little holes: there were some large ones, and more than one thin place. At one corner a strip of it was torn, and hung forlornly.