‘Restore me to my young acolytes and escape unscathed. Retain me—and—’
‘They must ha’ got all this up, case the Polly got pinched,’ said Ike. ‘Lor’ lumme, the artfulness of them young uns!’
‘I say, slosh ‘em in the geseech and get clear off with the swag’s wot I say,’ urged Herbert.
‘Right O,’ said Isaac.
‘Forbear,’ repeated the Phoenix, sternly. ‘Who pinched the click off of the old bloke in Aldermanbury?’ it added, in a changed tone.
‘Who sneaked the nose-rag out of the young gell’s ‘and in Bell Court? Who—’
‘Stow it,’ said Ike. ‘You! ugh! yah!—leave go of me. Bash him off, Urb; ‘e’ll have my bloomin’ eyes outer my ed.’
There were howls, a scuffle, a flutter; Ike and Urb fled up the stairs, and the Phoenix swept out through the doorway. The children followed and the Phoenix settled on Robert, ‘like a butterfly on a rose,’ as Anthea said afterwards, and wriggled into the breast of his Norfolk jacket, ‘like an eel into mud,’ as Cyril later said.
‘Why ever didn’t you burn him? You could have, couldn’t you?’ asked Robert, when the hurried flight through the narrow courts had ended in the safe wideness of Farringdon Street.
‘I could have, of course,’ said the bird, ‘but I didn’t think it would be dignified to allow myself to get warm about a little thing like that. The Fates, after all, have not been illiberal to me. I have a good many friends among the London sparrows, and I have a beak and claws.’