s not going to
say anything but the truth. Whatever it was he did not say it, for the
Phoenix interrupted him, and all breathed more freely as it spoke.

'I gather,' it said, 'that you have some tidings of a fatal nature to
communicate to our degraded black brothers who run to and fro for ever
yonder.' It pointed a claw at the cupboard, where the blackbeetles
lived.

'Canary TALK,' said the Lamb joyously; 'go and show mammy.'

He wriggled off Anthea's lap.

'Mammy's asleep,' said Jane, hastily. 'Come and be wild beasts in a cage
under the table.'

But the Lamb caught his feet and hands, and even his head, so often and
so deeply in the holes of the carpet that the cage, or table, had to be
moved on to the linoleum, and the carpet lay bare to sight with all its
horrid holes.

'Ah,' said the bird, 'it isn't long for this world.'

'No,' said Robert; 'everything comes to an end. It's awful.'

'Sometimes the end is peace,' remarked the Phoenix. 'I imagine that
unless it comes soon the end of your carpet will be pieces.'

'Yes,' said Cyril, respectfully kicking what was left of the carpet. The
movement of its bright colours caught the eye of the Lamb, who went down
on all fours instantly and began to pull at the red and blue threads.

'Aggedydaggedygaggedy,' murmured the Lamb; 'daggedy ag ag ag!'

And before any one could have winked (even if they had wanted to, and it
would not have been of the slightest use) the middle of the floor showed
bare, an island of boards surrounded by a sea of linoleum. The magic
carpet was gone, AND SO WAS THE LAMB!

There was a horrible silence. The Lamb--the baby, all alone--had been
wafted away on that untrustworthy carpet, so full of holes and magic.
And no one could know where he was. And no one could follow him because
there was now no carpet to follow on.

Jane burst into tears, but Anthea, though pale and frantic, was
dry-eyed.

'It MUST be a dream,' she said.

'That's what the clergyman said,' remarked Robert forlornly; 'but it
wasn't, and it isn't.'

'But the Lamb never wished,' said Cyril; 'he was only talking Bosh.'

'The carpet understands all speech,' said the Phoenix, 'even Bosh. I
know not this Boshland, but be assured that its tongue is not unknown to
the carpet.'

'Do you mean, then,' said Anthea, in white terror, 'that when he was
saying "Agglety dag," or whatever it was, that he meant something by
it?'

'All speech has meaning,' said the Phoenix.

'Th