They moved the table and chairs off the
carpet, and Anthea swept it.
'We must show it a LITTLE attention,' she said kindly. 'We'll give
it tea-leaves next time. Carpets like tea-leaves.'
Then every one put on its out-door things, because as Cyril said,
they didn't know where they might be going, and it makes people
stare if you go out of doors in November in pinafores and without
hats.
Then Robert gently awoke the Phoenix, who yawned and stretched
itself, and allowed Robert to lift it on to the middle of the
carpet, where it instantly went to sleep again with its crested
head tucked under its golden wing as before. Then every one sat
down on the carpet.
'Where shall we go?' was of course the question, and it was warmly
discussed. Anthea wanted to go to Japan. Robert and Cyril voted
for America, and Jane wished to go to the seaside.
'Because there are donkeys there,' said she.
'Not in November, silly,' said Cyril; and the discussion got warmer
and warmer, and still nothing was settled.
'I vote we let the Phoenix decide,' said Robert, at last. So they
stroked it till it woke. 'We want to go somewhere abroad,' they
said, 'and we can't make up our minds where.'
'Let the carpet make up ITS mind, if it has one,' said the Phoenix.
'Just say you wish to go abroad.
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