noise they made now to express their disgust at the
costumes of ancient Babylon was far louder than their ordinary row. One
had to shout before one could hear oneself speak.

'I only wish,' said the clerk who thought it was conjuring--he was quite
close to the children and they trembled, because they knew that whatever
he wished would come true. 'I only wish we knew who'd done it.'

And, of course, instantly they did know, and they pressed round the
Queen.

'Scandalous! Shameful! Ought to be put down by law. Give her in charge.
Fetch the police,' two or three voices shouted at once.

The Queen recoiled.

'What is it?' she asked. 'They sound like caged lions--lions by the
thousand. What is it that they say?'

'They say "Police!",' said Cyril briefly. 'I knew they would sooner or
later. And I don't blame them, mind you.'

'I wish my guards were here!' cried the Queen. The exhausted Psammead
was panting and trembling, but the Queen's guards in red and green
garments, and brass and iron gear, choked Throgmorton Street, and bared
weapons flashed round the Queen.

'I'm mad,' said a Mr Rosenbaum; 'dat's what it is--mad!'

'It's a judgement on you, Rosy,' said his partner. 'I always said you
were too hard in that matter of Flowerdew. It's a judgement, and I'm in
it too.'

The members of the Stock Exchange had edged carefully away from the
gleaming blades, the mailed figures, the hard, cruel Eastern faces.

But Throgmorton Street is narrow, and the crowd was too thick for them
to get away as quickly as they wished.

'Kill them,' cried the Queen. 'Kill the dogs!'

The guards obeyed.

'It IS all a dream,' cried Mr Levinstein, cowering in a doorway behind
his clerk.

'It isn't,' said the clerk. 'It isn't. Oh, my good gracious! those
foreign brutes are killing everybody. Henry Hirsh is down now, and
Prentice is cut in two--oh, Lord! and Huth, and there goes Lionel Cohen
with his head off, and Guy Nickalls has lost his head now. A dream? I
wish to goodness it was all a dream.'

And, of course, instantly it was! The entire Stock Exchange rubbed its
eyes and went back to close, to over, and either side of seven-eights,
and Trunks, and Kaffirs, and Steel Common, and Contangoes, and
Backwardations, Double Options, and all the interesting subjects
concerning which they talk in the Street without ceasing.

No one said a word about it to anyone else. I think I have explained
before that business men do not like it to b