on it. By the end of the cucumber season you will be another
sixteen--or with luck seventeen--inches on your way. Thirty-two inches
in all, almost a yard. And thus you progress towards your goal, slowly
but surely, like in politics.'

'Thank you very much,' said Philip; 'we will think it over.'

But it did not need much thought.

'If we could get a motor car!' said Philip. 'If you can get machines by
wishing for them. . . .'

'The very thing,' said Lucy, 'let's find the head-man. _We_ mustn't wish
for a motor or we should have to go on using it. But perhaps there's
some one here who'd like to drive a motor--for his living, you know?'

There was. A Halma man, with an inborn taste for machinery, had long
pined to leave the gathering of pine-apples to others. He was induced to
wish for a motor and a B.S.A. sixty horse-power car snorted suddenly in
the place where a moment before no car was.

'Oh, the luxury! This is indeed like home,' sighed Brenda, curling up on
the air-cushions.

And the children certainly felt a gloriously restful sensation. Nothing
to be done; no need to think or bother. Just to sit quiet and be borne
swiftly on through wonderful cities, all of which Philip vaguely
remembered to have seen, small and near, and built by his own hands and
Helen's.

And so, at last, they came close to Polistopolis. Philip never could
tell how it was that he stopped the car outside the city. It must have
been some quite unaccountable instinct, because naturally, you know,
when you are not used to being driven in motors, you like to dash up to
the house you are going to, and enjoy your friends' enjoyment of the
grand way in which you have travelled. But Philip felt--in that quite
certain and quite unexplainable way in which you do feel things
sometimes--that it was best to stop the car among the suburban groves of
southernwood, and to creep into the town in the disguise afforded by
motor coats, motor veils and motor goggles. (For of course all these had
come with the motor car when it was wished for, because no motor car is
complete without them.)

[Illustration: Philip felt that it was best to stop the car among the
suburban groves of southernwood.]

They said good-bye warmly to the Halma motor man, and went quietly
towards the town, Max and Brenda keeping to heel in the most
praiseworthy way, and the parrot nestling inside Philip's jacket, for it
was chilled by the long rush through the evening air.

And now