: Edith Nesbit
: The Phoenix and the Carpet
: eKitap Projesi
: 9786059496933
: 1
: CHF 2.20
:
: Kinder- und Jugendbücher
: English
: 160
: kein Kopierschutz
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB

' HE BIRD ROSE' in its nest of fire, stretched its wings, and flew out into the room. It flew round and round, and round again, and where it passed the air was warm. Then it perched on the fender. The children looked at each other. Then Cyril put out a hand towards the bird. It put its head on one side and looked up at him, as you may have seen a parrot do when it is just going to speak, so that the children were hardly astonished at all when it said, 'Be careful; I am not nearly cool yet.'
They were not astonished, but they were very, very much interested.


T ey looked at the bird, and it was certainly worth looking at. Its feathers were like gold. It was about as large as a bantam, only its beak was not at all bantam-shaped. 'I believe I know what it is,' said Robert. 'I've seen a picture.'


H hurried away. A hasty dash and scramble among the papers on father's study table yielded, as the sum-books say, 'the desired result'. But when he came back into the room holding out a paper, and crying, 'I say, look here,' the others all said 'Hush!' and he hushed obediently and instantly, for the bird was speaking.


' hich of you,' it was saying, 'put the egg into the fire?'
'He did,' said three voices, and three fingers pointed at Robert.
The bird bowed; at least it was more like that than anything else.
'I am your grateful debtor,' it said with a highbred air.
The children were all choking with wonder and curiosity-all except Robert. He held the paper in his hand, and he KNEW. He said so. He said-
'I know who you are.'
And he opened and displayed a printed paper, at the head of which was a little picture of a bird sitting in a nest of flames.


' ou are the PHOENIX,'
said Robert; and the bird was quite pleased.
'My fame has lived then for two thousand years,' it said. 'Allow me to look at my portrait.' It looked at the page which Robert, kneeling down, spread out in the fender, and said-
'It's not a flattering likeness...


A d what are these characters?' it asked, pointing to the printed part.

CHAPTER 1. THE EGG


It began with the day when it was almost the Fifth of November, and a doubt arose in some breast—Robert’s, I fancy—as to the quality of the fireworks laid in for the Guy Fawkes celebration.

‘They were jolly cheap,’ said whoever it was, and I think it was Robert, ‘and suppose they didn’t go off on the night? Those Prosser kids would have something to snigger about then.’

‘The onesIgot are all right,’ Jane said; ‘I know they are, because the man at the shop said they were worth thribble the money—’

‘I’m sure thribble isn’t grammar,’ Anthea said.

‘Of course it isn’t,’ said Cyril; ‘one word can’t be grammar all by itself, so you needn’t be so jolly clever.’

Anthea was rummaging in the corner-drawers of her mind for a very disagreeable answer, when she remembered what a wet day it was, and how the boys had been disappointed of that ride to London and back on the top of the tram, which their mother had promised them as a reward for not having once forgotten, for six whole days, to wipe their boots on the mat when they came home from school.

So Anthea only said, ‘Don’t be so jolly clever yourself, Squirrel. And the fireworks look all right, and you’ll have the eightpence that your tram fares didn’t cost to-day, to buy something more with. You ought to get a perfectly lovely Catharine wheel for eightpence.’

‘I daresay,’ said Cyril, coldly; ‘but it’s not YOUR eightpence anyhow—’

‘But look here,’ said Robert, ‘really now, about the fireworks. We don’t want to be disgraced before those kids next door. They think because they wear red plush on Sundays no one else is any good.’

‘I wouldn’t wear plush if it was ever so—unless it was black to be beheaded in, if I was Mary Queen of Scots,’ said Anthea, with scorn.

Robert stuck steadily to his point. One great point about Robert is the steadiness with which he can stick.

‘I think we ought to test them,’ he said.

‘You young duffer,’ said Cyril, ‘fireworks are like postage-stamps. You can only use them once.’

‘What do you suppose it means by “Carter’s tested seeds” in the advertisement?’

There was a blank silence. Then Cyril touched his forehead with his finger and shook his head.

‘A little wrong here,’ he said. ‘I was always afraid of that with poor Robert. All that cleverness, you know, and being top in algebra so often—it’s bound to tell—’

‘Dry up,’ said Robert, fiercely. ‘Don’t you see? You can’t TEST seeds if you do them ALL. You just take a few here and there, and if those grow you can feel pretty sure the others will be—what do you call it?—Father told me—“up to sample”. Don’t you think we ought to sample the fire-works? Just shut our eyes and each draw one out, and then try them.’

‘But it’s raining cats and dogs,’ said Jane.

‘And Queen Anne is dead,’ rejoined Robert. No one was in a very good temper. ‘We needn’t go out to do them; we can just move back the table, and let them off on the old tea-tray we play toboggans with. I don’t know what YOU think, butIthink it’s time we did something, and that would be really useful; because then we shouldn’t just HOPE the fireworks would make those Prossers sit up—we should KNOW.’

‘It WOULD be something to do,’ Cyril owned with languid approval.

So the table was moved back. And then the hole in the carpet, that had been near the window till the carpet was turned round, showed most awfully. But Anthea stole out on tip-toe, and got the tray when cook wasn’t looking,