'Robert is right,' Anthea said; 'this is no time for being careful
about our money. Let's go to the stationer's first, and buy a
whole packet of lead-pencils. They're cheaper if you buy them by
the packet.'
This was a thing that they had always wanted to do, but it needed
the great excitement of a funeral pyre and a parting from a beloved
Phoenix to screw them up to the extravagance.
The people at the stationer's said that the pencils were real
cedar-wood, so I hope they were, for stationers should always speak
the truth. At any rate they cost one-and-fourpence. Also they
spent sevenpence three-farthings on a little sandal-wood box inlaid
with ivory.
'Because,' said Anthea, 'I know sandalwood smells sweet, and when
it's burned it smells very sweet indeed.'
'Ivory doesn't smell at all,' said Robert, 'but I expect when you
burn it it smells most awful vile, like bones.'
At the grocer's they bought all the spices they could remember the
names of--shell-like mace, cloves like blunt nails, peppercorns,
the long and the round kind; ginger, the dry sort, of course; and
the beautiful bloom-covered shells of fragrant cinnamon. Allspice
too, and caraway seeds (caraway seeds that smelt most deadly when
the time came for burning them).
Camphor and oil of lavender were bought at the chemist's, and also
a little scent sachet labelled 'Violettes de Parme'.
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