‘What shall we play?’ asked Raphael.
‘Let’s play trains.’
‘But we haven’t any.’
‘Mechanus said,’ answered Cassandra, ‘that all we had to do was to clap our hands, and a mechanico would bring us anything we wanted.’
They both clapped their hands, and a mechanico appeared.
‘Please,’ said Cassandra, ‘we want to play trains.’
THE MECHANICO DISAPPEARED AND SUMMONED A LARGE GANG OF OTHER MECHANICOS
The mechanico disappeared and returned in a moment bringing a large box which he carried on his head. When the box was opened, Raphael gave a cry of delight. Inside it were real trains that ran by steam and were fired by tiny chips of coal. They had electric lights in all the carriages. There were also sections of track, and the mechanico brought switches and drawbridges and stations and a roundhouse with a turntable.
They laid the track through the jungle of the false flowers, and played happily together for an hour or two. Then Raphael got up and stretched.