"_You_ aren't!" Jane said. "Oh, tell us everything you can about yourself! We don't know anything about you, and you _are_ so nice." The Sand-fairy smoothed his long rat-like whiskers and smiled between them. "Do please tell!" said the children all together. It is wonderful how quickly you get used to things, even the most astonishing. Five minutes before, the children had had no more idea than you had that there was such a thing as a Sand-fairy in the world, and now they were talking to it as though they had known it all their lives. It drew its eyes in and said-- "How very sunny it is--quite like old times! Where do you get your Megatheriums from now?" "What?" said the children all at once. It is very difficult always to remember that "what" is not polite, especially in moments of surprise or agitation. "Are Pterodactyls plentiful now?" the Sand-fairy went on. The children were unable to reply. "What do you have for breakfast?" the Fairy said impatiently, "and who gives it to you?" "Eggs and bacon, and bread and milk, and porridge and things. Mother gives it to us. What are Mega-what's-its-names and Ptero-what-do-you-call-thems? And does anyone have them for breakfast?" "Why, almost everyone had Pterodactyl for breakfast in my time! Pterodactyls were something like crocodiles and something like birds--I believe they were very good grilled. You see, it was like this: of course there were heaps of Sand-fairies then, and in the morning early you went out and hunted for them, and when you'd found one it gave you your wish. People used to send their little boys down to the seashore in the morning before breakfast to get the day's wishes, and very often the eldest boy in the family would be told to wish for a Megatherium, ready jointed for cooking. It was as big as an elephant, you see, so there was a good deal of meat on it. And if they wanted fish, the Ichthyosaurus was asked for,--he was twenty to forty feet long, so there was plenty of him. And for poultry there was the Plesiosaurus; there were nice pickings on that too. Then the other children could wish for other things. But when people had dinner-parties it was nearly always Megatheriums; and Ichthyosaurus, because his fins were a great delicacy and his tail made soup." "There must have been heaps and heaps of cold meat left over," said Anthea, who meant to be a good housekeeper some day. "Oh no," said the Psammead, "that would never have done. Why, of course at sunset what was left over turned into stone. You find the stone bones of the Megatherium and things all over the place even now, they tell me." "Who tell you?" asked Cyril; but the Sand-fairy frowned and began to dig very fast with its furry hands. "Oh, don't go!" they all cried; "tell us more about when it was Megatheriums for breakfast! Was the world like this then?" It stopped digging.