"It was not me upset the ink, but it took such a
time clearing up, so no more as it is
post-time.--From your loving daughter "ANTHEA."

Robert's letter had not even been begun. He had been drawing a ship on
the blotting paper while he was trying to think of what to say. And of
course after the ink was upset he had to help Anthea to clean out her
desk, and he promised to make her another secret drawer, better than
the other. And she said, "Well, make it now." So it was post-time and
his letter wasn't done. And the secret drawer wasn't done either.

Cyril wrote a long letter, very fast, and then went to set a trap for
slugs that he had read about in the _Home-made Gardener_, and when it
was post-time the letter could not be found, and it was never found.
Perhaps the slugs ate it.

Jane's letter was the only one that went. She meant to tell her mother
all about the Psammead,--in fact they had all meant to do this,--but she
spent so long thinking how to spell the word that there was no time to
tell the story properly, and it is useless to tell a story unless you
_do_ tell it properly, so she had to be contented with this--

"MY DEAR MOTHER DEAR,--We are all as good as we
can, like you told us to, and the Lamb has a
little cold, but Martha says it is nothing, only
he upset the gold-fish into himself yesterday
morning. When we were up at the sand-pit the other
day we went round by the safe way where carts go,
and we found a"--