'I see,' said Philip. But he didn't. I only hope _you_ do. 'You can take your time about this new job,' said Mr. Noah, 'and you may get any help you like. I shan't consider you've failed till you've been at it three months. After that the Pretenderette would be entitled to _her_ chance.' 'If you're quite sure that the time here doesn't count at home,' said Philip, 'what is it, please, that we've got to do?' 'The greatest intellects of our country have for many ages occupied themselves with the problem which you are now asked to solve,' said Mr. Noah. 'Your late gaoler, Mr. Bacon-Shakespeare, has written no less than twenty-seven volumes, all in cypher, on this very subject. But as he has forgotten what cypher he used, and no one else ever knew it, his volumes are of but little use to us.' 'I see,' said Philip. And again he didn't. Mr. Noah rose to his full height, and when he stood up the children looked very small beside him. 'Now,' he said, 'I will tell you what it is that you must do. I should like to decree that your second labour should be the tidying up of this room--_all_ these papers are prophecies relating to the Deliverer--but it is one of our laws that the judge must not use any public matter for his own personal benefit. So I have decided that the next labour shall be the disentangling of the Mazy Carpet. It is in the Pillared Hall of Public Amusements. I will get my hat and we will go there at once. I can tell you about it as we go.' And as they went down streets and past houses and palaces all of which Philip could now dimly remember to have built at some time or other, Mr. Noah went on: 'It is a very beautiful hall, but we have never been able to use it for public amusement or anything else. The giant who originally built this city placed in this hall a carpet so thick that it rises to your knees, and so intricately woven that none can disentangle it. It is far too thick to pass through any of the doors. It is your task to remove it.' 'Why that's as easy as easy,' said Philip. 'I'll cut it in bits and bring out a bit at a time.' 'That would be most unfortunate for you,' said Mr. Noah. 'I filed only this morning a very ancient prophecy: 'He who shall the carpet sever, By fire or flint or steel, Shall be fed on orange pips for ever, And dressed in orange peel. You wouldn't like that, you know.' 'No,' said Philip grimly, 'I certainly shouldn't.' 'The carpet must be _unravelled_, unwoven, so that not a thread is broken. Here is the hall.' They went up steps--Philip sometimes wished he had not been so fond of building steps--and through a dark vestibule to an arched door. Looking through it they saw a great hall and at its end a raised space, more steps, and two enormous pillars of bronze wrought in relief with figures of flying birds. 'Father's Japanese vases,' Lucy whispered.