‘We’ve jolly well got to get used to its hurting OUR golden feet,’ said Cyril.
‘This, then,’ said the bird, ‘supersedes the Wishing Carpet.’
‘Yes,’ said Robert, ‘if you mean that it’s instead of it.’
‘And the magic web?’ inquired the Phoenix, with sudden eagerness.
‘It’s the rag-and-bottle man’s day to-morrow,’ said Anthea, in a low voice; ‘he will take it away.’
The Phoenix fluttered up to its favourite perch on the chair-back.
‘Hear me!’ it cried, ‘oh youthful children of men, and restrain your tears of misery and despair, for what must be must be, and I would not remember you, thousands of years hence, as base ingrates and crawling worms compact of low selfishness.’
‘I should hope not, indeed,’ said Cyril.
‘Weep not,’ the bird went on; ‘I really do beg that you won’t weep.
I will not seek to break the news to you gently. Let the blow fall at once. The time has come when I must leave you.’