Please go on reading.' The children gathered round the table.
'The size of an eagle,' Cyril went on, 'its head finely crested with a beautiful plumage, its neck covered with feathers of a gold colour, and the rest of its body purple; only the tail white, and the eyes sparkling like stars.

They say that it lives about five hundred years in the wilderness, and when advanced in age it builds itself a pile of sweet wood and aromatic gums, fires it with the wafting of its wings, and thus burns itself; and that from its ashes arises a worm, which in time grows up to be a Phoenix.

Hence the Phoenicians gave--' 'Never mind what they gave,' said the Phoenix, ruffling its golden feathers.

'They never gave much, anyway; they always were people who gave nothing for nothing.

That book ought to be destroyed.