Now, my Lamb, Panther'll clean you a little.

Come on.' 'I hope the beetles won't go wishing,' said Cyril, as they rolled up the carpet.
Two days later mother was well enough to go out, and that evening the coconut matting came home.

The children had talked and talked, and thought and thought, but they had not found any polite way of telling the Phoenix that they did not want it to stay any longer.
The days had been days spent by the children in embarrassment, and by the Phoenix in sleep.
And, now the matting was laid down, the Phoenix awoke and fluttered down on to it.
It shook its crested head.
'I like not this carpet,' it said; 'it is harsh and unyielding, and it hurts my golden feet.' 'We've jolly well got to get used to its hurting OUR golden feet,' said Cyril.
'This, then,' said the bird, 'supersedes the Wishing Carpet.' 'Yes,' said Robert, 'if you mean that it's instead of it.' 'And the magic web ?' inquired the Phoenix, with sudden eagerness.
'It's the rag-and-bottle man's day to-morrow,' said Anthea, in a low voice; 'he will take it away.' The Phoenix fluttered up to its favourite perch on the chair-back.
'Hear me!' it cried, 'oh youthful children of men, and restrain your tears of misery and despair, for what must be must be, and I would not remember you, thousands of years hence, as base ingrates and crawling worms compact of low selfishness.' 'I should hope not, indeed,' said Cyril.
'Weep not,' the bird went on; 'I really do beg that you won't weep.
I will not seek to break the news to you gently.

Let the blow fall at once.

The time has come when I must leave you.' All four children breathed forth a long sigh of relief.
'We needn't have bothered so about how to break the news to it,' whispered Cyril.
'Ah, sigh not so,' said the bird, gently.