The Phoenix and the Carpet - E. Nesbit (best pdf reader for ebooks .txt) 📗

true truth any more than the police would. That’s the worst of the truth. Nobody ever believes it. Couldn’t we take him somewhere else?”

Jane clapped her hands.

“The sunny southern shore!” she cried, “where the cook is being queen. He and she would be company for each other!”

And really the idea did not seem bad, if only he would consent to go.

So, all talking at once, the children arranged to wait till evening, and then to seek the dear burglar in his lonely cell.

Meantime Jane and Anthea darned away as hard as they could, to make the carpet as strong as possible. For all felt how terrible it would be if the precious burglar, while being carried to the sunny southern shore, were to tumble through a hole in the carpet, and be lost forever in the sunny southern sea.

The servants were tired after Mrs. Wigson’s party, so everyone went to bed early, and when the Phoenix reported that both servants were snoring in a heartfelt and candid manner, the children got up⁠—they had never undressed; just putting their nightgowns on over their things had been enough to deceive Eliza when she came to turn out the gas. So they were ready for anything, and they stood on the carpet and said⁠—

“I wish we were in our burglar’s lonely cell.” and instantly they were.

I think everyone had expected the cell to be the “deepest dungeon below the castle moat.” I am sure no one had doubted that the burglar, chained by heavy fetters to a ring in the damp stone wall, would be tossing uneasily on a bed of straw, with a pitcher of water and a mouldering crust, untasted, beside him. Robert, remembering the underground passage and the treasure, had brought a candle and matches, but these were not needed.

The cell was a little whitewashed room about twelve feet long and six feet wide. On one side of it was a sort of shelf sloping a little towards the wall. On this were two rugs, striped blue and yellow, and a waterproof pillow. Rolled in the rugs, and with his head on the pillow, lay the burglar, fast asleep. (He had had his tea, though this the children did not know⁠—it had come from the coffee-shop round the corner, in very thick crockery.) The scene was plainly revealed by the light of a gas-lamp in the passage outside, which shone into the cell through a pane of thick glass over the door.

“I shall gag him,” said Cyril, “and Robert will hold him down. Anthea and Jane and the Phoenix can whisper soft nothings to him while he gradually awakes.”

This plan did not have the success it deserved, because the burglar, curiously enough, was much stronger, even in his sleep, than Robert and Cyril, and at the first touch of their hands he leapt up and shouted out something very loud indeed.

Instantly steps were heard outside. Anthea threw her arms round the burglar and whispered⁠—

“It’s us⁠—the ones that gave you the cats. We’ve come to save you, only don’t let on we’re here. Can’t we hide somewhere?”

Heavy boots sounded on the flagged passage outside, and a firm voice shouted⁠—

“Here⁠—you⁠—stop that row, will you?”

“All right, governor,” replied the burglar, still with Anthea’s arms round him; “I was only a-talking in my sleep. No offence.”

It was an awful moment. Would the boots and the voice come in. Yes! No! The voice said⁠—

“Well, stow it, will you?”

And the boots went heavily away, along the passage and up some sounding stone stairs.

“Now then,” whispered Anthea.

“How the blue Moses did you get in?” asked the burglar, in a hoarse whisper of amazement.

“On the carpet,” said Jane, truly.

“Stow that,” said the burglar. “One on you I could ’a’ swallowed, but four⁠—and a yellow fowl.”

“Look here,” said Cyril, sternly, “you wouldn’t have believed anyone if they’d told you beforehand about your finding a cow and all those cats in our nursery.”

“That I wouldn’t,” said the burglar, with whispered fervour, “so help me Bob, I wouldn’t.”

“Well, then,” Cyril went on, ignoring this appeal to his brother, “just try to believe what we tell you and act accordingly. It can’t do you any harm, you know,” he went on in hoarse whispered earnestness. “You can’t be very much worse off than you are now, you know. But if you’ll just trust to us we’ll get you out of this right enough. No one saw us come in. The question is, where would you like to go?”

“I’d like to go to Boolong,” was the instant reply of the burglar. “I’ve always wanted to go on that there trip, but I’ve never ’ad the ready at the right time of the year.”

“Boolong is a town like London,” said Cyril, well meaning, but inaccurate, “how could you get a living there?”

The burglar scratched his head in deep doubt.

“It’s ’ard to get a ’onest living anywheres nowadays,” he said, and his voice was sad.

“Yes, isn’t it?” said Jane, sympathetically; “but how about a sunny southern shore, where there’s nothing to do at all unless you want to.”

“That’s my billet, miss,” replied the burglar. “I never did care about work⁠—not like some people, always fussing about.”

“Did you never like any sort of work?” asked Anthea, severely.

“Lor’, lumme, yes,” he answered, “gardening was my ’obby, so it was. But father died afore ’e could bind me to a nurseryman, an’⁠—”

“We’ll take you to the sunny southern shore,” said Jane; “you’ve no idea what the flowers are like.”

“Our old cook’s there,” said Anthea. “She’s queen⁠—”

“Oh, chuck it,” the burglar whispered, clutching at his head with both hands. “I knowed the first minute I see them cats and that cow as it was a judgement on me. I don’t know now whether I’m a-standing on my hat or my boots, so help me I don’t. If you can get me out, get me, and if you can’t, get along with you for goodness’ sake, and give me a chanst to think about what’ll be most likely to go down