The Phoenix and the Carpet by E. Nesbit (best non fiction books of all time .TXT) 📕

felt warm to my golden toes, as though the glorious sun of the desert shone ever upon it.”

“Oh, you mean the cylinder,” said Cyril: “it has rather a comforting feel, this weather. And now where shall we go?”

And then, of course, the usual discussion broke out as to where they should go and what they should do. And naturally, everyone wanted to do something that the others did not care about.

“I am the eldest,” Cyril remarked, “let’s go to the North Pole.”

“This weather! Likely!” Robert rejoined. “Let’s go to the Equator.”

“I think the diamond mines of Golconda would be nice,” said Anthea; “don’t you agree, Jane?”

“No, I don’t,” retorted Jane, “I don’t agree with you. I don’t agree with anybody.”

The Phoenix raised a warning claw.

“If you cannot agree among yourselves, I fear I shall have to leave you,” it said.

“Well, where shall we go? You decide!” said all.

“If I were you,” said the bird, thoughtfully, “I should give the carpet a rest. Besides, you’ll lose the use of your legs if you go everywhere by carpet. Can’t you take me out and explain your ugly city to me?”

“We will if it clears up,” said Robert, without enthusiasm. “Just look at the rain. And why should we give the carpet a rest?”

“Are you greedy and grasping, and heartless and selfish?” asked the bird, sharply.

“No!” said Robert, with indignation.

“Well then!” said the Phoenix. “And as to the rain⁠—well, I am not fond of rain myself. If the sun knew I was here⁠—he’s very fond of shining on me because I look so bright and golden. He always says I repay a little attention. Haven’t you some form of words suitable for use in wet weather?”

“There’s ‘Rain, rain, go away,’ ” said Anthea; “but it never does go.”

“Perhaps you don’t say the invocation properly,” said the bird.

“Rain, rain, go away,
Come again another day,
Little baby wants to play,”

said Anthea.

“That’s quite wrong; and if you say it in that sort of dull way, I can quite understand the rain not taking any notice. You should open the window and shout as loud as you can⁠—

“Rain, rain, go away,
Come again another day;
Now we want the sun, and so,
Pretty rain, be kind and go!

“You should always speak politely to people when you want them to do things, and especially when it’s going away that you want them to do. And today you might add⁠—

“Shine, great sun, the lovely Phoe-
Nix is here, and wants to be
Shone on, splendid sun, by thee!”

“That’s poetry!” said Cyril, decidedly.

“It’s like it,” said the more cautious Robert.

“I was obliged to put in ‘lovely,’ ” said the Phoenix, modestly, “to make the line long enough.”

“There are plenty of nasty words just that length,” said Jane; but everyone else said “Hush!”

And then they opened the window and shouted the seven lines as loud as they could, and the Phoenix said all the words with them, except “lovely,” and when they came to that it looked down and coughed bashfully.

The rain hesitated a moment and then went away.

“There’s true politeness,” said the Phoenix, and the next moment it was perched on the window-ledge, opening and shutting its radiant wings and flapping out its golden feathers in such a flood of glorious sunshine as you sometimes have at sunset in autumn time. People said afterwards that there had not been such sunshine in December for years and years and years.

“And now,” said the bird, “we will go out into the city, and you shall take me to see one of my temples.”

“Your temples?”

“I gather from the carpet that I have many temples in this land.”

“I don’t see how you can find anything out from it,” said Jane: “it never speaks.”

“All the same, you can pick up things from a carpet,” said the bird; “I’ve seen you do it. And I have picked up several pieces of information in this way. That papyrus on which you showed me my picture⁠—I understand that it bears on it the name of the street of your city in which my finest temple stands, with my image graved in stone and in metal over against its portal.”

“You mean the fire insurance office,” said Robert. “It’s not really a temple, and they don’t⁠—”

“Excuse me,” said the Phoenix, coldly, “you are wholly misinformed. It is a temple, and they do.”

“Don’t let’s waste the sunshine,” said Anthea; “we might argue as we go along, to save time.”

So the Phoenix consented to make itself a nest in the breast of Robert’s Norfolk jacket, and they all went out into the splendid sunshine. The best way to the temple of the Phoenix seemed to be to take the tram, and on the top of it the children talked, while the Phoenix now and then put out a wary beak, cocked a cautious eye, and contradicted what the children were saying.

It was a delicious ride, and the children felt how lucky they were to have had the money to pay for it. They went with the tram as far as it went, and when it did not go any farther they stopped too, and got off. The tram stops at the end of the Gray’s Inn Road, and it was Cyril who thought that one might well find a shortcut to the Phoenix Office through the little streets and courts that lie tightly packed between Fetter Lane and Ludgate Circus. Of course, he was quite mistaken, as Robert told him at the time, and afterwards Robert did not forbear to remind his brother how he had said so. The streets there were small and stuffy and ugly, and crowded with printers’ boys and binders’ girls coming out from work; and these stared so hard at the pretty red coats and caps of the sisters that they wished they had gone some other way. And the printers and binders made very personal remarks, advising Jane to get her hair cut, and inquiring where Anthea had bought that hat. Jane and Anthea scorned to reply, and Cyril and