The Phoenix and the Carpet | Page 5

it. Anthea screamed, Jane burst into tears, and
Cyril turned the table wrong way up on top of the carpet heap. But the
firework went on, banging and bursting and spluttering even
underneath the table.
Next moment mother rushed in, attracted by the howls of Anthea, and
in a few moments the firework desisted and there was a dead silence,
and the children stood looking at each other's black faces, and, out of
the corners of their eyes, at mother's white one.
The fact that the nursery carpet was ruined occasioned but little surprise,
nor was any one really astonished that bed should prove the immediate
end of the adventure. It has been said that all roads lead to Rome; this
may be true, but at any rate, in early youth I am quite sure that many
roads lead to BED, and stop there--or YOU do.
The rest of the fireworks were confiscated, and mother was not pleased
when father let them off himself in the back garden, though he said,
'Well, how else can you get rid of them, my dear?'
You see, father had forgotten that the children were in disgrace, and
that their bedroom windows looked out on to the back garden. So that
they all saw the fireworks most beautifully, and admired the skill with
which father handled them.
Next day all was forgotten and forgiven; only the nursery had to be
deeply cleaned (like spring-cleaning), and the ceiling had to be
whitewashed.
And mother went out; and just at tea-time next day a man came with a
rolled-up carpet, and father paid him, and mother said--
'If the carpet isn't in good condition, you know, I shall expect you to
change it.' And the man replied--

'There ain't a thread gone in it nowhere, mum. It's a bargain, if ever
there was one, and I'm more'n 'arf sorry I let it go at the price; but we
can't resist the lydies, can we, sir?' and he winked at father and went
away.
Then the carpet was put down in the nursery, and sure enough there
wasn't a hole in it anywhere.
As the last fold was unrolled something hard and loud-sounding
bumped out of it and trundled along the nursery floor. All the children
scrambled for it, and Cyril got it. He took it to the gas. It was shaped
like an egg, very yellow and shiny, half-transparent, and it had an odd
sort of light in it that changed as you held it in different ways. It was as
though it was an egg with a yolk of pale fire that just showed through
the stone.
'I MAY keep it, mayn't I, mother?' Cyril asked.
And of course mother said no; they must take it back to the man who
had brought the carpet, because she had only paid for a carpet, and not
for a stone egg with a fiery yolk to it.
So she told them where the shop was, and it was in the Kentish Town
Road, not far from the hotel that is called the Bull and Gate. It was a
poky little shop, and the man was arranging furniture outside on the
pavement very cunningly, so that the more broken parts should show as
little as possible. And directly he saw the children he knew them again,
and he began at once, without giving them a chance to speak.
'No you don't' he cried loudly; 'I ain't a-goin' to take back no carpets, so
don't you make no bloomin' errer. A bargain's a bargain, and the
carpet's puffik throughout.'
'We don't want you to take it back,' said Cyril; 'but we found something
in it.'
'It must have got into it up at your place, then,' said the man, with
indignant promptness, 'for there ain't nothing in nothing as I sell. It's all

as clean as a whistle.'
'I never said it wasn't CLEAN,' said Cyril, 'but--'
'Oh, if it's MOTHS,' said the man, 'that's easy cured with borax. But I
expect it was only an odd one. I tell you the carpet's good through and
through. It hadn't got no moths when it left my 'ands--not so much as an
hegg.'
'But that's just it,' interrupted Jane; 'there WAS so much as an egg.'
The man made a sort of rush at the children and stamped his foot.
'Clear out, I say!' he shouted, 'or I'll call for the police. A nice thing for
customers to 'ear you a-coming 'ere a-charging me with finding things
in goods what I sells. 'Ere, be off, afore I sends you off with a flea in
your ears. Hi! constable--'
The children fled, and they think, and their father thinks, that they
couldn't have done anything else. Mother has her own opinion.
But father