The telephone rang. Wendell offered to go, as he was “just starting for bed anyway.” It proved to be someone asking for him.
“Do you know who this is?” asked an eager girlish voice. “Can’t you guess? It’s the Beauteous Maiden. I knew you would want to hear from me, but I had such a time finding you! I didn’t know how you were listed. Yes, I’m getting on beautifully. Oh, yes, the contract is signed. We did it that day. The president of the producing company is delighted with me. He says I shall film beautifully. He says my youth, innocence, and beauty will make me the most popular girl in America.—How are you progressing with the invisible cloak?—You have? How perfectly splendid! And the Cap of—? You have? How perfectly wonderful! And the Book? No, I don’t know where she keeps it. I never saw it. But she always keeps the attic locked and never let me up there, so that might be—Oh, let me give you my phone number. You must let me know, of course, how it comes out.”
Wendell wrote it down, but there was a queer sinking in the place where he kept his heart—or his stomach: he didn’t know which. He was remembering the Kobold’s remark about marrying the Beauteous Maiden. Whenever he thought of it, he was attacked by that same curious sinking. What a brainless fellow that Kobold was, to be sure, just as the Pixie had said! He rather wished he hadn’t been so short with the Pixie last night. He was a well-meaning chap, after all, and a fiend at fractions.
When he got upstairs to his room, there was the Pixie waiting for him, and Wendell was really very glad to see him, and decided not to reopen the subject of the Pixie’s precipitate flight from the Giant’s house.
The Pixie was tremendously interested in the Cap of Thought. He tried it on, and also the Cloak of Darkness, and had Wendell try them both on to show how they worked. And the Pixie gave some very kind advice as to getting possession of the magic book, and offered to work some of his best transformation spells; but Wendell had his plan all made and laid it before the Pixie. It was, to go out very early Saturday morning, when he would have a holiday from school, watch the house till the Giant had left, and thus have the whole day ahead of him, to search the premises. He relied on the magic Cloak and Cap to help him out of any difficulties that might arise.
“Well, perhaps that’s the best plan,” assented the Pixie. “And of course, if you find it necessary, you can count on me to change you into anything we think most useful. For instance, you might like to be changed to a moving truck, if this magic book is like any other magic books I’ve ever seen.”
“How do you mean?” said Wendell.
“Well, the subject matter is pretty heavy, you know. It makes the book rather weighty.”
“Oh, does it?” said Wendell. “I didn’t know.”
“And another thing I want to warn you of,” said the Pixie seriously. “Don’t read any charm aloud, till you know what it’s for. They ought to make those magic books fool-proof, but they don’t.”