I suppose it can't help its nature.

Perhaps we'd better wash too.

Now I come to think of it my hands are rather--' No one had noticed the Phoenix since it had bidden them to step on the carpet.

And no one noticed that no one had noticed.
All were partially clean, and Cyril was just plunging into his great-coat to go and look for his parents--he, and not unjustly, called it looking for a needle in a bundle of hay--when the sound of father's latchkey in the front door sent every one bounding up the stairs.
'Are you all safe ?' cried mother's voice; 'are you all safe ?' and the next moment she was kneeling on the linoleum of the hall, trying to kiss four damp children at once, and laughing and crying by turns, while father stood looking on and saying he was blessed or something.
'But how did you guess we'd come home,' said Cyril, later, when every one was calm enough for talking.
'Well, it was rather a rum thing.

We heard the Garrick was on fire, and of course we went straight there,' said father, briskly.