'The refusal?'

'I mean, do not sell it to anyone else until you have given me
the opportunity of buying it.'

'All right,' said Cyril, 'we won't. But we don't want to sell
it. We want to make it do things.'

'I suppose you can play at that as well as at anything else,'
said the gentleman; 'but I'm afraid the days of magic are over.'

'They aren't REALLY,' said Anthea earnestly. 'You'd see they
aren't if I could tell you about our last summer holidays. Only
I mustn't. Thank you very much. And can you read the name?'

'Yes, I can read it.'

'Will you tell it us?' 'The name,' said the gentleman, 'is Ur
Hekau Setcheh.'

'Ur Hekau Setcheh,' repeated Cyril. 'Thanks awfully. I do hope
we haven't taken up too much of your time.'

'Not at all,' said the gentleman. 'And do let me entreat you to
be very, very careful of that most valuable specimen.'

They said 'Thank you' in all the different polite ways they could
think of, and filed out of the door and down the stairs. Anthea
was last. Half-way down to the first landing she turned and ran
up again.