they'd want to know where we got it.'

So then the queen sent out for little pretty things, and her
servants piled the carpet with them.

'I must needs lend you an elephant to carry them away,' she said,
laughing.

But Anthea said, 'If the queen will lend us a comb and let us wash
our hands and faces, she shall see a magic thing. We and the
carpet and all these brass trays and pots and carved things and
stuffs and things will just vanish away like smoke.'

The queen clapped her hands at this idea, and lent the children a
sandal-wood comb inlaid with ivory lotus-flowers. And they washed
their faces and hands in silver basins.
Then Cyril made a very polite farewell speech, and quite suddenly
he ended with the words--

'And I wish we were at the bazaar at our schools.'

And of course they were. And the queen and her ladies were left
with their mouths open, gazing at the bare space on the inlaid
marble floor where the carpet and the children had been.

'That is magic, if ever magic was!' said the queen, delighted with
the incident; which, indeed, has given the ladies of that court
something to talk about on wet days ever since.

Cyril's stories had taken some time, so had the meal of strange