her so long as she behaves,' and then took hold again and
his little grey wings and the big white wings of the Hippogriff went
sailing away across the desert.

'What a treasure of a parrot?' said Philip. But Lucy said:

'Who _is_ that Pretenderette? Why is she so horrid to us when every one
else is so nice?'

'I don't know,' said Philip, 'hateful old thing.'

'I can't help feeling as if I knew her quite well, if I could only
remember who she is.'

'Do you?' said Philip. 'I say, let's play noughts and crosses. I've got
a notebook and a bit of pencil in my pocket. We might play till it's
time to go to sleep.'

So they played noughts and crosses on the Pebbly Waste, and behind them
the parrot and the Hippogriff took away the tiresome one, and in front
of them lay the high pebble ridge that was like a mountain, and beyond
that was the unknown and the adventure and the Dwellers and the deed to
be done.

CHAPTER VII

THE DWELLERS BY THE SEA

You soon get used to things. It seemed quite natural and homelike to
Philip to be wakened in bright early out-of-door's morning by the gentle
beak of the parrot at his ear.

'You got back all right then,' he said sleepily.

'It was rather a long journey,' said the parrot, 'but I thought it
better to come back by wing. The Hippogriff offered to bring me; he is
the soul of courteous gentleness. But he was tired too. The
Pretenderette is in gaol for the moment, but I'm afraid she'll get out
again; we're so unused to having prisoners, you see. And it's no use
putting _her_ on her honour, because----'

'Because she hasn't any,' Philip finished.

'I wouldn't say _that_,' said the parrot, 'of anybody. I'd only say we
haven't come across it. What about breakfast?'

'How meals do keep happening,' said Lucy, yawning; 'it seems only a few
minutes since supper. And yet here we are, hungry again!'

'Ah!' said the parrot, 'that's what people always feel when they have to
get their meals themselves!'

When the camel and the dogs had been served with breakfast, the children
and the parrot sat down to eat. And there were many questions to ask.
The parrot answered some, and some it didn't answer.

'But there's one thing,' said Lucy, 'I do most awfully want to know.
About the Hippogriff. How did it get out of the book?'

'It's a long story,' said the parrot, 'so I'll tell it shortly. That's a
very good rule. Tell short stories longly and long stories shortly. Many
years ago,