re was that in her tone which showed Cyril, all too plainly, the
hopelessness of persuasion. He found the others and said--

'It's no use; she's like a lioness robbed of its puppies. We must watch
where it goes--and--Anthea, I don't care what you say. It's our own
carpet. It wouldn't be burglary. It would be a sort of forlorn hope
rescue party--heroic and daring and dashing, and not wrong at all.'

The children still wandered among the gay crowd--but there was no
pleasure there for them any more. The chorus of singing birds sounded
just like glass tubes being blown through water, and the phonograph
simply made a horrid noise, so that you could hardly hear yourself
speak. And the people were buying things they couldn't possibly want,
and it all seemed very stupid. And Mrs Biddle had bought the wishing
carpet for ten shillings. And the whole of life was sad and grey and
dusty, and smelt of slight gas escapes, and hot people, and cake and
crumbs, and all the children were very tired indeed.

They found a corner within sight of the carpet, and there they waited
miserably, till it was far beyond their proper bedtime. And when it was
ten the people who had bought things went away, but the people who had
been selling stayed to count up their money.

'And to jaw about it,' said Robert. 'I'll never go to another bazaar as
long as ever I live. My hand is swollen as big as a pudding. I expect
the nails in her horrible boots were poisoned.'

Just then some one who seemed to have a right to interfere said--

'Everything is over now; you had better go home.'

So they went. And then they waited on the pavement under the gas lamp,
where ragged children had been standing all the evening to listen to
the band, and their feet slipped about in the greasy mud till Mrs Biddle
came out and was driven away in a cab with the many things she hadn't
sold, and the few things she had bought--among others the carpet. The
other stall-holders left their things at the school till Monday morning,
but Mrs Biddle was afraid some one would steal some of them, so she took
them in a cab.

The children, now too desperate to care for mud or appearances, hung
on behind the cab till it reached Mrs Biddle's house. When she and the
carpet had gone in and the door was shut Anthea said--

'Don't let's burgle--I mean do daring and dashing rescue acts--till
we've given her a chance. Let's ring and ask to see her.'

The others hated to do this, but at last th