obert looked round the room, but he got no
ideas from the faded green curtains, or the drab Venetian blinds, or
the worn brown oil-cloth on the floor. Even the new carpet suggested
nothing, though its pattern was a very wonderful one, and always seemed
as though it were just going to make you think of something.

'I could begin right enough,' said Anthea; 'I've read lots about it. But
I believe it's wrong in the Bible.'

'It's only wrong in the Bible because people wanted to hurt other
people. I don't see how things can be wrong unless they hurt somebody,
and we don't want to hurt anybody; and what's more, we jolly well
couldn't if we tried. Let's get the Ingoldsby Legends. There's a thing
about Abra-cadabra there,' said Cyril, yawning. 'We may as well play at
magic. Let's be Knights Templars. They were awfully gone on magic. They
used to work spells or something with a goat and a goose. Father says
so.'

'Well, that's all right,' said Robert, unkindly; 'you can play the goat
right enough, and Jane knows how to be a goose.'

'I'll get Ingoldsby,' said Anthea, hastily. 'You turn up the hearthrug.'

So they traced strange figures on the linoleum, where the hearthrug had
kept it clean. They traced them with chalk that Robert had nicked
from the top of the mathematical master's desk at school. You know, of
course, that it is stealing to take a new stick of chalk, but it is not
wrong to take a broken piece, so long as you only take one. (I do not
know the reason of this rule, nor who made it.) And they chanted all the
gloomiest songs they could think of. And, of course, nothing happened.
So then Anthea said, 'I'm sure a magic fire ought to be made of
sweet-smelling wood, and have magic gums and essences and things in it.'

'I don't know any sweet-smelling wood, except cedar,' said Robert; 'but
I've got some ends of cedar-wood lead pencil.'

So they burned the ends of lead pencil. And still nothing happened.

'Let's burn some of the eucalyptus oil we have for our colds,' said
Anthea.

And they did. It certainly smelt very strong. And they burned lumps
of camphor out of the big chest. It was very bright, and made a horrid
black smoke, which looked very magical. But still nothing happened. Then
they got some clean tea-cloths from the dresser drawer in the kitchen,
and waved them over the magic chalk-tracings, and sang 'The Hymn of the
Moravian Nuns at Bethlehem', which is very impressive. And still nothing
happened. S