“A sight of it is not much good.”
“No, silly. But, don’t you see, when we’ve seen it we shall know where it is, and we can go and take it in the night when everybody is asleep.”
“It wouldn’t be stealing, would it?” said Anthea thoughtfully, “because it will be such an awfully long time ago when we do it. Oh, there’s that bell again.”
As soon as dinner was eaten (it was tinned salmon and lettuce, and a jam tart), and the cloth cleared away, the idea was explained to the others, and the Psammead was aroused from sand, and asked what it thought would be good merchandise with which to buy the affection of say, the Ancient Egyptians, and whether it thought the Amulet was likely to be found in the Court of Pharaoh.
But it shook its head, and shot out its snail’s eyes hopelessly.
“I’m not allowed to play in this game,” it said. “Of course I could find out in a minute where the thing was, only I mayn’t. But I may go so far as to own that your idea of taking things with you isn’t a bad one. And I shouldn’t show them all at once. Take small things and conceal them craftily about your persons.”
This advice seemed good. Soon the table was littered over with things which the children thought likely to interest the Ancient Egyptians. Anthea brought dolls, puzzle blocks, a wooden tea-service, a green leather case with Nécessaire written on it in gold letters. Aunt Emma had once given it to Anthea, and it had then contained scissors, penknife, bodkin, stiletto, thimble, corkscrew, and glove-buttoner. The scissors, knife, and thimble, and penknife were, of course, lost, but the other things were there and as good as new. Cyril contributed lead soldiers, a cannon, a catapult, a tin-opener, a tie-clip, and a tennis ball, and a padlock—no key. Robert collected a candle (“I don’t suppose they ever saw a self-fitting paraffin one,” he said), a penny Japanese pin-tray, a rubber stamp with his father’s name and address on it, and a piece of putty.
Jane added a key-ring, the brass handle of a poker, a pot that had held cold-cream, a smoked pearl button off her winter coat, and a key—no lock.
“We can’t take all this rubbish,” said Robert, with some scorn. “We must just each choose one thing.”
The afternoon passed very agreeably in the attempt to choose from the table the four most suitable objects. But the four children could not agree what was suitable, and at last Cyril said—