en his
hands in a thick slime of grey soapsuds. 'I've been thinking. We've only
just PLAYED with the Amulet so far. We've got to work it now--WORK it
for all it's worth. And it isn't only Mother either. There's Father out
there all among the fighting. I don't howl about it, but I THINK--Oh,
bother the soap!' The grey-lined soap had squirted out under the
pressure of his fingers, and had hit Anthea's chin with as much force as
though it had been shot from a catapult.

'There now,' she said regretfully, 'now I shall have to wash my face.'

'You'd have had to do that anyway,' said Cyril with conviction. 'Now, my
idea's this. You know missionaries?'

'Yes,' said Anthea, who did not know a single one.

'Well, they always take the savages beads and brandy, and stays, and
hats, and braces, and really useful things--things the savages haven't
got, and never heard about. And the savages love them for their
kind generousness, and give them pearls, and shells, and ivory, and
cassowaries. And that's the way--'

'Wait a sec,' said Anthea, splashing. 'I can't hear what you're saying.
Shells and--'

'Shells, and things like that. The great thing is to get people to love
you by being generous. And that's what we've got to do. Next time we go
into the Past we'll regularly fit out the expedition. You remember how
the Babylonian Queen froze on to that pocket-book? Well, we'll take
things like that. And offer them in exchange for a sight of the Amulet.'

'A sight of it is not much good.'

'No, silly. But, don't you see, when we've seen it we shall know where
it is, and we can go and take it in the night when everybody is asleep.'

'It wouldn't be stealing, would it?' said Anthea thoughtfully, 'because
it will be such an awfully long time ago when we do it. Oh, there's that
bell again.'

As soon as dinner was eaten (it was tinned salmon and lettuce, and a jam
tart), and the cloth cleared away, the idea was explained to the others,
and the Psammead was aroused from sand, and asked what it thought would
be good merchandise with which to buy the affection of say, the Ancient
Egyptians, and whether it thought the Amulet was likely to be found in
the Court of Pharaoh.

But it shook its head, and shot out its snail's eyes hopelessly.

'I'm not allowed to play in this game,' it said. 'Of course I COULD find
out in a minute where the thing was, only I mayn't. But I may go so far
as to own that your idea of taking things with you isn't