And it went then and there to sand, which, as you know, meant to bed. The boys went to St James’s Park to feed the ducks, but they went alone.
Anthea and Jane sat sewing all the afternoon. They cut off half a yard from each of their best green Liberty sashes. A towel cut in two formed a lining; and they sat and sewed and sewed and sewed. What they were making was a bag for the Psammead. Each worked at a half of the bag. Jane’s half had four-leaved shamrocks embroidered on it. They were the only things she could do (because she had been taught how at school, and, fortunately, some of the silk she had been taught with was left over). And even so, Anthea had to draw the pattern for her. Anthea’s side of the bag had letters on it—worked hastily but affectionately in chain stitch. They were something like this:
She would have put “travelling carriage”, but she made the letters too big, so there was no room. The bag was made into a bag with old Nurse’s sewing machine, and the strings of it were Anthea’s and Jane’s best red hair ribbons.
At tea-time, when the boys had come home with a most unfavourable report of the St James’s Park ducks, Anthea ventured to awaken the Psammead, and to show it its new travelling bag.
“Humph,” it said, sniffing a little contemptuously, yet at the same time affectionately, “it’s not so dusty.”
The Psammead seemed to pick up very easily the kind of things that people said nowadays. For a creature that had in its time associated with Megatheriums and Pterodactyls, its quickness was really wonderful.
“It’s more worthy of me,” it said, “than the kind of bag that’s given away with a pound of plaice. When do you propose to take me out in it?”
“I should like a rest from taking you or us anywhere,” said Cyril. But Jane said—
“I want to go to Egypt. I did like that Egyptian Princess that came to marry the King in Babylon. She told me about the larks they have in Egypt. And the cats. Do let’s go there. And I told her what the bird things on the Amulet were like. And she said it was Egyptian writing.”