eft him. At last he roused himself with a
start.

'I really must take a holiday,' he said; 'my nerves must be all out of
order. I actually have a perfectly distinct impression that the little
girl from the rooms below came in and gave me a coherent and graphic
picture of life as I conceive it to have been in pre-dynastic Egypt.
Strange what tricks the mind will play! I shall have to be more
careful.'

He finished his bread conscientiously, and actually went for a mile walk
before he went back to his work.

CHAPTER 6. THE WAY TO BABYLON

'How many miles to Babylon?
Three score and ten!
Can I get there by candle light?
Yes, and back again!'

Jane was singing to her doll, rocking it to and fro in the house
which she had made for herself and it. The roof of the house was the
dining-table, and the walls were tablecloths and antimacassars hanging
all round, and kept in their places by books laid on their top ends at
the table edge.

The others were tasting the fearful joys of domestic tobogganing. You
know how it is done--with the largest and best tea-tray and the surface
of the stair carpet. It is best to do it on the days when the stair rods
are being cleaned, and the carpet is only held by the nails at the top.
Of course, it is one of the five or six thoroughly tip-top games that
grown-up people are so unjust to--and old Nurse, though a brick in many
respects, was quite enough of a standard grown-up to put her foot down
on the tobogganing long before any of the performers had had half enough
of it. The tea-tray was taken away, and the baffled party entered the
sitting-room, in exactly the mood not to be pleased if they could help
it.

So Cyril said, 'What a beastly mess!'

And Robert added, 'Do shut up, Jane!'

Even Anthea, who was almost always kind, advised Jane to try another
song. 'I'm sick to death of that,' said she.

It was a wet day, so none of the plans for seeing all the sights of
London that can be seen for nothing could be carried out. Everyone had
been thinking all the morning about the wonderful adventures of the day
before, when Jane had held up the charm and it had turned into an arch,
through which they had walked straight out of the present time and
the Regent's Park into the land of Egypt eight thousand years ago.
The memory of yesterday's happenings was still extremely fresh and
frightening, so that everyone hoped that no one would suggest another
excursion into the past,