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Library / Literature & Fiction

The Phoenix and the Carpet

by E. Nesbit

Pages
about 223
Category
Literature & Fiction
Language
English
Reading time
4.1 h at 250 wpm
Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 2.3 h at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

Dear Hubert, if I ever found A wishing-carpet lying round, I’d stand upon it, and I’d say: ‘Take me to Hubert, right away!’ And then we’d travel very far To where the magic countries are That you and I will never see, And choose the loveliest gifts for you, from me.

But oh! alack! and well-a-day! No wishing-carpets come my way. I never found a Phoenix yet, And Psammeads are so hard to get! So I give you nothing fine-- Only this book your book and mine, And hers, whose name by yours is set; Your book, my book, the book of Margaret!

The children had seen the Phoenix-egg hatched in the flames in their own nursery grate, and had heard from it how the carpet on their own nursery floor was really the wishing carpet, which would take them anywhere they chose. The carpet had transported them to bed just at the right moment, and the Phoenix had gone to roost on the cornice supporting the window-curtains of the boys’ room.

‘Excuse me,’ said a gentle voice, and a courteous beak opened, very kindly and delicately, the right eye of Cyril. ‘I hear the slaves below preparing food. Awaken! A word of explanation and arrangement... I do wish you wouldn’t--’

The Phoenix stopped speaking and fluttered away crossly to the cornice-pole; for Cyril had hit out, as boys do when they are awakened suddenly, and the Phoenix was not used to boys, and his feelings, if not his wings, were hurt.

‘Sorry,’ said Cyril, coming awake all in a minute. ‘Do come back! What was it you were saying? Something about bacon and rations?’

The Phoenix fluttered back to the brass rail at the foot of the bed.

‘The carpet is as real as it ever was,’ said the Phoenix, rather contemptuously; ‘but, of course, a carpet’s only a carpet, whereas a Phoenix is superlatively a Phoenix.’

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