Cyril thumped her on the back.
“Cheer up,” he said. “You know my inside thinking that I was doing? Well, that was partly about Mother. We’ll soon get her back. If you’ll chuck it, like a sensible kid, and wash your face, I’ll tell you about it. That’s right. You let me get to the tap. Can’t you stop crying? Shall I put the door-key down your back?”
“That’s for noses,” said Anthea, “and I’m not a kid any more than you are,” but she laughed a little, and her mouth began to get back into its proper shape. You know what an odd shape your mouth gets into when you cry in earnest.
“Look here,” said Cyril, working the soap round and round between his hands in a thick slime of grey soapsuds. “I’ve been thinking. We’ve only just played with the Amulet so far. We’ve got to work it now—work it for all it’s worth. And it isn’t only Mother either. There’s Father out there all among the fighting. I don’t howl about it, but I think—Oh, bother the soap!” The grey-lined soap had squirted out under the pressure of his fingers, and had hit Anthea’s chin with as much force as though it had been shot from a catapult.
“There now,” she said regretfully, “now I shall have to wash my face.”
“You’d have had to do that anyway,” said Cyril with conviction. “Now, my idea’s this. You know missionaries?”
“Yes,” said Anthea, who did not know a single one.
“Well, they always take the savages beads and brandy, and stays, and hats, and braces, and really useful things—things the savages haven’t got, and never heard about. And the savages love them for their kind generousness, and give them pearls, and shells, and ivory, and cassowaries. And that’s the way—”
“Wait a sec,” said Anthea, splashing. “I can’t hear what you’re saying. Shells and—”
“Shells, and things like that. The great thing is to get people to love you by being generous. And that’s what we’ve got to do. Next time we go into the Past we’ll regularly fit out the expedition. You remember how the Babylonian Queen froze on to that pocket-book? Well, we’ll take things like that. And offer them in exchange for a sight of the Amulet.”