"So of course I said yes, and we were crossing the Channel all right when he suddenly began to disappear.
"You can guess I was in an awful funk when I found myself alone on the beastly old carpet, and I couldn't manage it at all. I suppose it was because I couldn't speak the language; Shin Shira used Arabic or something, wasn't it? I tried all sorts of things too, a little bit of French—you know, 'Avez-vous la plume de ma sœur?' and 'Donnez-moi du pain,' and things like that out of my French exercises, but it didn't do any good: we only went out to sea.
"It was frightfully cold all night, and I couldn't sleep at all, and I began to get awfully hungry; but the next morning about eleven o'clock I began to descend very slowly and gradually down to the sea. I thought I was going to be drowned, but fortunately just before I touched the water they saw me from the Ruby, and sent a boat out to pick me up. Everybody was awfully decent on board, and I had plenty of grub and changed my clothes. A fellow who was going over with his people lent me his while mine were being dried.
"Then when I got to New York your cable message was there waiting for me, so I knew it was all right."
We were very thankful to have found the boy again, and within three weeks we were happily home once more, and the adventure with the Magic Carpet was a thing of the past.
The carpet itself was left floating out at sea, and from that day to this I have not heard of it again.