f saucepan burned out. It
was the little saucepan lined with white that was kept for the baby's
milk.

Tuesday.--A dead mouse found in pantry. Fish-slice taken to dig grave
with. By regrettable accident fish-slice broken. Defence: 'The cook
oughtn't to keep dead mice in pantries.'

Wednesday.--Chopped suet left on kitchen table. Robert added chopped
soap, but he says he thought the suet was soap too.

Thursday.--Broke the kitchen window by falling against it during a
perfectly fair game of bandits in the area.

Friday.--Stopped up grating of kitchen sink with putty and filled sink
with water to make a lake to sail paper boats in. Went away and left the
tap running. Kitchen hearthrug and cook's shoes ruined.

On Saturday the carpet was restored. There had been plenty of time
during the week to decide where it should be asked to go when they did
get it back.

Mother had gone over to granny's, and had not taken the Lamb because he
had a bad cough, which, cook repeatedly said, was whooping-cough as sure
as eggs is eggs.

'But we'll take him out, a ducky darling,' said Anthea. 'We'll take
him somewhere where you can't have whooping-cough. Don't be so silly,
Robert. If he DOES talk about it no one'll take any notice. He's always
talking about things he's never seen.'

So they dressed the Lamb and themselves in out-of-doors clothes, and the
Lamb chuckled and coughed, and laughed and coughed again, poor dear, and
all the chairs and tables were moved off the carpet by the boys, while
Jane nursed the Lamb, and Anthea rushed through the house in one last
wild hunt for the missing Phoenix.

'It's no use waiting for it,' she said, reappearing breathless in the
breakfast-room. 'But I know it hasn't deserted us. It's a bird of its
word.'

'Quite so,' said the gentle voice of the Phoenix from beneath the table.

Every one fell on its knees and looked up, and there was the Phoenix
perched on a crossbar of wood that ran across under the table, and had
once supported a drawer, in the happy days before the drawer had been
used as a boat, and its bottom unfortunately trodden out by Raggett's
Really Reliable School Boots on the feet of Robert.

'I've been here all the time,' said the Phoenix, yawning politely
behind its claw. 'If you wanted me you should have recited the ode of
invocation; it's seven thousand lines long, and written in very pure and
beautiful Greek.'

'Couldn't you tell it us in English?' asked Anthea.

'I