"Don't you feel well, Phœnix, dear?" asked Anthea, stooping to take an iron off the fire.
"'DON'T YOU FEEL WELL, PHŒNIX, DEAR?' ASKED ANTHEA.">[
"I am not sick," replied the golden bird, with a gloomy shake of the head, "but I am getting old."
"Why, you've only been hatched about two months."
"Time," remarked the Phœnix, "is measured by heart-beats. I'm sure the palpitations I've had since I've known you are enough to blanch the feathers of any bird."
"But I thought you lived five hundred years," said Robert, "and you've hardly begun this set of years. Think of all the time that's before you."
"Time," said the Phœnix, "is, as you are probably aware, merely a convenient fiction. There is no such thing as time. I have lived in these two months at a pace which generously counterbalances five hundred years of life in the desert. I am old, I am weary. I feel as if I ought to lay my egg, and lay me down to my fiery sleep. But unless I'm careful I shall be hatched again instantly, and that is a misfortune which I really do not think I could endure. But do not let me intrude these desperate personal reflections on your youthful happiness. What is the show at the theatre to-night? Wrestlers? Gladiators? A combat of camelopards and unicorns?"
"I don't think so," said Cyril; "it's called 'The Water Babies,' and if it's like the book there isn't any gladiating in it. There are chimney-sweeps and professors, and a lobster and an otter and a salmon, and children living in the water."
"It sounds chilly," the Phœnix shivered, and went to sit on the tongs.