l about it.)
And just as eight hands and one pair of claws were being dried on the
roller-towel behind the scullery door there came a strange sound from
the other side of the kitchen wall--the side where the nursery was. It
was a very strange sound, indeed--most odd, and unlike any other sounds
the children had ever heard. At least, they had heard sounds as much
like it as a toy engine's whistle is like a steam siren's.

'The carpet's come back,' said Robert; and the others felt that he was
right.

'But what has it brought with it?' asked Jane. 'It sounds like
Leviathan, that great beast.'

'It couldn't have been made in India, and have brought elephants? Even
baby ones would be rather awful in that room,' said Cyril. 'I vote we
take it in turns to squint through the keyhole.'

They did--in the order of their ages. The Phoenix, being the eldest by
some thousands of years, was entitled to the first peep. But--

'Excuse me,' it said, ruffling its golden feathers and sneezing softly;
'looking through keyholes always gives me a cold in my golden eyes.'

So Cyril looked.

'I see something grey moving,' said he.

'It's a zoological garden of some sort, I bet,' said Robert, when he had
taken his turn. And the soft rustling, bustling, ruffling, scuffling,
shuffling, fluffling noise went on inside.

'_I_ can't see anything,' said Anthea, 'my eye tickles so.'

Then Jane's turn came, and she put her eye to the keyhole.

'It's a giant kitty-cat,' she said; 'and it's asleep all over the
floor.'

'Giant cats are tigers--father said so.'

'No, he didn't. He said tigers were giant cats. It's not at all the same
thing.'

'It's no use sending the carpet to fetch precious things for you
if you're afraid to look at them when they come,' said the Phoenix,
sensibly. And Cyril, being the eldest, said--

'Come on,' and turned the handle.

The gas had been left full on after tea, and everything in the room
could be plainly seen by the ten eyes at the door. At least, not
everything, for though the carpet was there it was invisible, because it
was completely covered by the hundred and ninety-nine beautiful objects
which it had brought from its birthplace.

'My hat!' Cyril remarked. 'I never thought about its being a PERSIAN
carpet.'

Yet it was now plain that it was so, for the beautiful objects which it
had brought back were cats--Persian cats, grey Persian cats, and there
were, as I have said, 199 of them, and they were