T

The Princess was just Lucy.

'It's too bad,' said Philip. 'I do think.' Then he stopped short and
just looked cross.

'The Princess and the Champion will now have their teas,' said Mr. Noah.
'Right about face, everybody, please, and quick march.'

Philip and Lucy found themselves marching side by side through the night
made yellow with continuous fireworks.

You must picture them marching across a great plain of grass where many
coloured flowers grew. You see a good many of Philip's buildings had
been made on the drawing-room carpet at home, which was green with pink
and blue and yellow and white flowers. And this carpet had turned into
grass and growing flowers, following that strange law which caused
things to change into other things, like themselves, but larger and
really belonging to a living world.

No one spoke. Philip said nothing because he was in a bad temper. And if
you are in a bad temper, nothing is a good thing to say. To circumvent a
dragon and then kill it, and to have such an adventure end in tea with
Lucy, was too much. And he had other reasons for silence too. And Lucy
was silent because she had so much to say that she didn't know where to
begin; and besides, she could feel how cross Philip was. The crowd did
not talk because it was not etiquette to talk when taking part in
processions. Mr. Noah did not talk because it made him out of breath to
walk and talk at the same time, two things neither of which he had been
designed to do.

So that it was quite a silent party which at last passed through the
gateway of the town and up its streets.

Philip wondered where the tea would be--not in the prison of course. It
was very late for tea, too, quite the middle of the night it seemed. But
all the streets were brilliantly lighted, and flags and festoons of
flowers hung from all the windows and across all the streets.

It was in the front of a big building in one of the great squares of the
city that an extra display of coloured lamps disclosed open doors and
red-carpeted steps. Mr. Noah hurried up them, and turned to receive
Philip and Lucy.

'The City of Polistopolis,' he said, 'whose unworthy representative I
am, greets in my person the most noble Sir Philip, Knight and Slayer of
the Dragon. Also the Princess whom he has rescued. Be pleased to enter.'

They went up the red-cloth covered steps and into a hall, very splendid
with silver and ivory. Mr. Noah stooped to a confidential question.