"We will bring quilts," said the little lady with a superior air.
So, about an hour afterwards, after the children had been put to bed and their elders had begun the serious work of watching and waiting and dozing through the night, two little figures, well wrapped up in quilted cotton gowns and dragging quilted cotton blankets behind them, stole up the stairs to the roof of the house.
"I'm going to ask God to let him come," said Baby Akbar solemnly. So they both touched the cold marble floor with their warm little foreheads and said:
"Please Great God! Let our grand-dad Babar come and take care of us, and be kind to us, and not let the Angel write nasty things on our foreheads for this next year!"
So they both touched the cold marble floor with their warm little foreheads.
Then they cuddled themselves closely together in the blankets and were soon fast asleep.
So fast asleep that even when, after the short hullaballoo which followed on the discovery that they were not in their beds, they were traced to the roof, they did not thoroughly wake up, but were carried down again without knowing much about it.
"Shall I blow out the lights?" asked Roy, as Head-nurse prepared to descend also.