by Edith Nesbit
‘The carpet’s come back,’ said Robert; and the others felt that he was right.
‘But what has it brought with it?’ asked Jane. ‘It sounds like Leviathan, that great beast.’
‘It couldn’t have been made in India, and have brought elephants? Even baby ones would be rather awful in that room,’ said Cyril. ‘I vote we take it in turns to squint through the keyhole.’
They did — in the order of their ages. The Phoenix, being the eldest by some thousands of years, was entitled to the first peep. But —
‘Excuse me,’ it said, ruffling its golden feathers and sneezing softly; ‘looking through keyholes always gives me a cold in my golden eyes.’
So Cyril looked.
‘I see something grey moving,’ said he.
‘It’s a zoological garden of some sort, I bet,’ said Robert, when he had taken his turn. And the soft rustling, bustling, ruffling, scuffling, shuffling, fluffling noise went on inside.
‘I can’t see anything,’ said Anthea, ‘my eye tickles so.’
Then Jane’s turn came, and she put her eye to the keyhole.
‘It’s a giant kitty-cat,’ she said; ‘and it’s asleep all over the floor.’
‘Giant cats are tigers — father said so.’
‘No, he didn’t. He said tigers were giant cats. It’s not at all the same thing.’
‘It’s no use sending the carpet to fetch precious things for you if you’re afraid to look at them when they come,’ said the Phoenix, sensibly. And Cyril, being the eldest, said —
‘Come on,’ and turned the handle.
The gas had been left full on after tea, and everything in the room could be plainly seen by the ten eyes at the door. At least, not everything, for though the carpet was there it was invisible, because it was completely covered by the hundred and ninety-nine beautiful objects which it had brought from its birthplace.
‘My hat!’ Cyril remarked. ‘I never thought about its being a PERSIAN carpet.’
Yet it was now plain that it was so, for the beautiful objects which it had brought back were cats — Persian cats, grey Persian cats, and there were, as I have said, 199 of them, and they were sitting on the carpet as close as they could get to each other. But the moment the children entered the room the cats rose and stretched, and spread and overflowed from the carpet to the floor, and in an instant the floor was a sea of moving, mewing pussishness, and the children with one accord climbed to the table, and gathered up their legs, and the people next door knocked on the wall — and, indeed, no wonder, for the mews were Persian and piercing.
‘This is pretty poor sport,’ said Cyril. ‘What’s the matter with the bounders?’
‘I imagine that they are hungry,’ said the Phoenix. ‘If you were to feed them—’
‘We haven’t anything to feed them with,’ said Anthea in despair, and she stroked the nearest Persian back. ‘Oh, pussies, do be quiet — we can’t hear ourselves think.’
She had to shout this entreaty, for the mews were growing deafening, ‘and it would take pounds’ and pounds’ worth of cat’s-meat.’
‘Let’s ask the carpet to take them away,’ said Robert. But the girls said ‘No.’
‘They are so soft and pussy,’ said Jane.
‘And valuable,’ said Anthea, hastily. ‘We can sell them for lots and lots of money.’
‘Why not send the carpet to get food for them?’ suggested the Phoenix, and its golden voice came harsh and cracked with the effort it had to be make to be heard above the increasing fierceness of the Persian mews.
So it was written that the carpet should bring food for 199 Persian cats, and the paper was pinned to the carpet as before.
The carpet seemed to gather itself together, and the cats dropped off it, as raindrops do from your mackintosh when you shake it. And the carpet disappeared.
Unless you have had one-hundred and ninety-nine well-grown Persian cats in one small room, all hungry, and all saying so in unmistakable mews, you can form but a poor idea of the noise that now deafened the children and the Phoenix. The cats did not seem to have been at all properly brought up. They seemed to have no idea of its being a mistake in manners to ask for meals in a strange house — let alone to howl for them — and they mewed, and they mewed, and they mewed, and they mewed, till the children poked their fingers into their ears and waited in silent agony, wondering why the whole of Camden Town did not come knocking at the door to ask what was the matter, and only hoping that the food for the cats would come before the neighbours did — and before all the secret of the carpet and the Phoenix had to be given away beyond recall to an indignant neighbourhood.
The cats mewed and mewed and twisted their Persian forms in and out and unfolded their Persian tails, and the children and the Phoenix huddled together on the table.
The Phoenix, Robert noticed suddenly, was trembling.
‘So many cats,’ it said, ‘and they might not know I was the Phoenix. These accidents happen so quickly. It quite un-mans me.’
This was a danger of which the children had not thought.
‘Creep in,’ cried Robert, opening his jacket.
And the Phoenix crept in — only just in time, for green eyes had glared, pink noses had sniffed, white whiskers had twitched, and as Robert buttoned his coat he disappeared to the waist in a wave of eager grey Persian fur. And on the instant the good carpet slapped itself down on the floor. And it was covered with rats — three hundred and ninety-eight of them, I believe, two for each cat.
‘How horrible!’ cried Anthea. ‘Oh, take them away!’
‘Take yourself away,’ said the Phoenix, ‘and me.’
‘I wish we’d never had a carpet,’ said Anthea, in tears.
They hustled and crowded out of the door, and shut it, and locked it. Cyril, with great presence of mind, lit a candle and turned off the gas at the main.
‘The rats’ll have a better chance in the dark,’ he said.
The mewing had ceased. Every one listened in breathless silence. We all know that cats eat rats — it is one of the first things we read in our little brown reading books; but all those cats eating all those rats — it wouldn’t bear thinking of.
Suddenly Robert sniffed, in the silence of the dark kitchen, where the only candle was burning all on one side, because of the draught.
‘What a funny scent!’ he said.
And as he spoke, a lantern flashed its light through the window of the kitchen, a face peered in, and a voice said —
‘What’s all this row about? You let me in.’
It was the voice of the police!
Robert tip-toed to the window, and spoke through the pane that had been a little cracked since Cyril accidentally knocked it with a walking-stick when he was playing at balancing it on his nose. (It was after they had been to a circus.)
‘What do you mean?’ he said. ‘There’s no row. You listen; everything’s as quiet as quiet.’ And indeed it was.
The strange sweet scent grew stronger, and the Phoenix put out its beak.
The policeman hesitated.
‘They’re MUSK-rats,’ said the Phoenix. ‘I suppose some cats eat them — but never Persian ones. What a mistake for a well-informed carpet to make! Oh, what a night we’re having!’
‘Do go away,’ said Robert, nervously. ‘We’re just going to bed — that’s our bedroom candle; there isn’t any row. Everything’s as quiet as a mouse.’
A wild chorus of mews drowned his words, and with the mews were mingled the shrieks of the musk-rats. What had happened? Had the cats tasted them before deciding that they disliked the flavour?
‘I’m a-coming in,’ said the policeman. ‘You’ve got a cat shut up there.’
‘A cat,’ said Cyril. ‘Oh, my only aunt! A cat!’
‘Come in, then,’ said Robert. ‘It’s your own look out. I advise you not. Wait a shake, and I’ll undo the side gate.’
He undid the side gate, and the policeman, very cautiously, came in. And there in th
e kitchen, by the light of one candle, with the mewing and the screaming going like a dozen steam sirens, twenty waiting on motor-cars, and half a hundred squeaking pumps, four agitated voices shouted to the policeman four mixed and wholly different explanations of the very mixed events of the evening.
Did you ever try to explain the simplest thing to a policeman?
CHAPTER 8. THE CATS, THE COW, AND THE BURGLAR
The nursery was full of Persian cats and musk-rats that had been brought there by the wishing carpet. The cats were mewing and the musk-rats were squeaking so that you could hardly hear yourself speak. In the kitchen were the four children, one candle, a concealed Phoenix, and a very visible policeman.
‘Now then, look here,’ said the Policeman, very loudly, and he pointed his lantern at each child in turn, ‘what’s the meaning of this here yelling and caterwauling. I tell you you’ve got a cat here, and some one’s a ill-treating of it. What do you mean by it, eh?’
It was five to one, counting the Phoenix; but the policeman, who was one, was of unusually fine size, and the five, including the Phoenix, were small. The mews and the squeaks grew softer, and in the comparative silence, Cyril said —
‘It’s true. There are a few cats here. But we’ve not hurt them. It’s quite the opposite. We’ve just fed them.’
‘It don’t sound like it,’ said the policeman grimly.
‘I daresay they’re not REAL cats,’ said Jane madly, perhaps they’re only dream-cats.’
‘I’ll dream-cat you, my lady,’ was the brief response of the force.
‘If you understood anything except people who do murders and stealings and naughty things like that, I’d tell you all about it,’ said Robert; ‘but I’m certain you don’t. You’re not meant to shove your oar into people’s private cat-keepings. You’re only supposed to interfere when people shout “murder” and “stop thief” in the street. So there!’
The policeman assured them that he should see about that; and at this point the Phoenix, who had been making itself small on the pot-shelf under the dresser, among the saucepan lids and the fish-kettle, walked on tip-toed claws in a noiseless and modest manner, and left the room unnoticed by any one.
‘Oh, don’t be so horrid,’ Anthea was saying, gently and earnestly. ‘We LOVE cats — dear pussy-soft things. We wouldn’t hurt them for worlds. Would we, Pussy?’
And Jane answered that of course they wouldn’t. And still the policeman seemed unmoved by their eloquence.
‘Now, look here,’ he said, ‘I’m a-going to see what’s in that room beyond there, and—’
His voice was drowned in a wild burst of mewing and squeaking. And as soon as it died down all four children began to explain at once; and though the squeaking and mewing were not at their very loudest, yet there was quite enough of both to make it very hard for the policeman to understand a single word of any of the four wholly different explanations now poured out to him.
‘Stow it,’ he said at last. ‘I’m a-goin’ into the next room in the execution of my duty. I’m a-goin’ to use my eyes — my ears have gone off their chumps, what with you and them cats.’
And he pushed Robert aside, and strode through the door.
‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ said Robert.
‘It’s tigers REALLY,’ said Jane. ‘Father said so. I wouldn’t go in, if I were you.’
But the policeman was quite stony; nothing any one said seemed to make any difference to him. Some policemen are like this, I believe. He strode down the passage, and in another moment he would have been in the room with all the cats and all the rats (musk), but at that very instant a thin, sharp voice screamed from the street outside —
‘Murder — murder! Stop thief!’
The policeman stopped, with one regulation boot heavily poised in the air.
‘Eh?’ he said.
And again the shrieks sounded shrilly and piercingly from the dark street outside.
‘Come on,’ said Robert. ‘Come and look after cats while somebody’s being killed outside.’ For Robert had an inside feeling that told him quite plainly WHO it was that was screaming.
‘You young rip,’ said the policeman, ‘I’ll settle up with you bimeby.’
And he rushed out, and the children heard his boots going weightily along the pavement, and the screams also going along, rather ahead of the policeman; and both the murder-screams and the policeman’s boots faded away in the remote distance.
Then Robert smacked his knickerbocker loudly with his palm, and said —
‘Good old Phoenix! I should know its golden voice anywhere.’
And then every one understood how cleverly the Phoenix had caught at what Robert had said about the real work of a policeman being to look after murderers and thieves, and not after cats, and all hearts were filled with admiring affection.
‘But he’ll come back,’ said Anthea, mournfully, ‘as soon as it finds the murderer is only a bright vision of a dream, and there isn’t one at all really.’
‘No he won’t,’ said the soft voice of the clever Phoenix, as it flew in. ‘HE DOES NOT KNOW WHERE YOUR HOUSE IS. I heard him own as much to a fellow mercenary. Oh! what a night we are having! Lock the door, and let us rid ourselves of this intolerable smell of the perfume peculiar to the musk-rat and to the house of the trimmers of beards. If you’ll excuse me, I will go to bed. I am worn out.’
It was Cyril who wrote the paper that told the carpet to take away the rats and bring milk, because there seemed to be no doubt in any breast that, however Persian cats may be, they must like milk.
‘Let’s hope it won’t be musk-milk,’ said Anthea, in gloom, as she pinned the paper face-downwards on the carpet. ‘Is there such a thing as a musk-cow?’ she added anxiously, as the carpet shrivelled and vanished. ‘I do hope not. Perhaps really it WOULD have been wiser to let the carpet take the cats away. It’s getting quite late, and we can’t keep them all night.’
‘Oh, can’t we?’ was the bitter rejoinder of Robert, who had been fastening the side door. ‘You might have consulted me,’ he went on. ‘I’m not such an idiot as some people.’
‘Why, whatever—’
‘Don’t you see? We’ve jolly well GOT to keep the cats all night — oh, get down, you furry beasts! — because we’ve had three wishes out of the old carpet now, and we can’t get any more till to-morrow.’
The liveliness of Persian mews alone prevented the occurrence of a dismal silence.
Anthea spoke first.
‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘Do you know, I really do think they’re quieting down a bit. Perhaps they heard us say milk.’
‘They can’t understand English,’ said Jane. ‘You forget they’re Persian cats, Panther.’
‘Well,’ said Anthea, rather sharply, for she was tired and anxious, ‘who told you “milk” wasn’t Persian for milk. Lots of English words are just the same in French — at least I know “miaw” is, and “croquet”, and “fiance”. Oh, pussies, do be quiet! Let’s stroke them as hard as we can with both hands, and perhaps they’ll stop.’
So every one stroked grey fur till their hands were tired, and as soon as a cat had been stroked enough to make it stop mewing it was pushed gently away, and another mewing mouser was approached by the hands of the strokers. And the noise was really more than half purr when the carpet suddenly appeared in its proper place, and on it, instead of rows of milk-cans, or even of milk-jugs, there was a COW. Not a Persian cow, either, nor, most fortunately, a musk-cow, if there is such a thing, but a smooth, sleek, dun-coloured Jersey cow, who blinked large soft eyes at the gas-light and mooed in an amiable if rather inquiring manner.
Anthea had always been afraid of cows; but now she tried to be brave.
‘Anyway, it can’t run after me,’ she said to herself ‘There isn’t room for it even to begin to run.’
The cow was perfectly placid. She behaved like a strayed duchess till some one brought a saucer for the milk, and some one else tried to milk the cow int
o it. Milking is very difficult. You may think it is easy, but it is not. All the children were by this time strung up to a pitch of heroism that would have been impossible to them in their ordinary condition. Robert and Cyril held the cow by the horns; and Jane, when she was quite sure that their end of the cow was quite secure, consented to stand by, ready to hold the cow by the tail should occasion arise. Anthea, holding the saucer, now advanced towards the cow. She remembered to have heard that cows, when milked by strangers, are susceptible to the soothing influence of the human voice. So, clutching her saucer very tight, she sought for words to whose soothing influence the cow might be susceptible. And her memory, troubled by the events of the night, which seemed to go on and on for ever and ever, refused to help her with any form of words suitable to address a Jersey cow in.
‘Poor pussy, then. Lie down, then, good dog, lie down!’ was all that she could think of to say, and she said it.
And nobody laughed. The situation, full of grey mewing cats, was too serious for that. Then Anthea, with a beating heart, tried to milk the cow. Next moment the cow had knocked the saucer out of her hand and trampled on it with one foot, while with the other three she had walked on a foot each of Robert, Cyril, and Jane.