The moment after it had done so, with stiff, furry reluctance, like that of a cat when you want to nurse it, and its ideas are not the same as yours, old Nurse came in. “Well, chickies,” she said, “are you feeling very dull?” “Oh, no, Nurse dear,” said Anthea; “we’re having a lovely time. We’re just going off to see some old ancient relics.” “Ah,” said old Nurse, “the Royal Academy, I suppose? Don’t go wasting your money too reckless, that’s all.” She cleared away the kipper bones and the tea-things, and when she had swept up the crumbs and removed the cloth, the Amulet was held up and the order given—just as Duchesses (and other people) give it to their coachmen. “To Egypt, please!” said Anthea, when Cyril had uttered the wonderful Name of Power. “When Moses was there,” added Jane. And there, in the dingy Fitzroy Street dining-room, the Amulet grew big, and it was an arch, and through it they saw a blue, blue sky and a running river. “No, stop!” said Cyril, and pulled down Jane’s hand with the Amulet in it. “What silly cuckoos we all are,” he said. “Of course we can’t go. We daren’t leave home for a single minute now, for fear that minute should be _the_ minute.” “What minute be _what_ minute?” asked Jane impatiently, trying to get her hand away from Cyril. “The minute when the Queen of Babylon comes,” said Cyril. And then everyone saw it. For some days life flowed in a very slow, dusty, uneventful stream. The children could never go out all at once, because they never knew when the King of Babylon would go out lion hunting and leave his Queen free to pay them that surprise visit to which she was, without doubt, eagerly looking forward. So they took it in turns, two and two, to go out and to stay in. The stay-at-homes would have been much duller than they were but for the new interest taken in them by the learned gentleman. He called Anthea in one day to show her a beautiful necklace of purple and gold beads. “I saw one like that,” she said, “in—” “In the British Museum, perhaps?” “I like to call the place where I saw it Babylon,” said Anthea cautiously. “A pretty fancy,” said the learned gentleman, “and quite correct too, because, as a matter of fact, these beads did come from Babylon.” The other three were all out that day. The boys had been going to the Zoo, and Jane had said so plaintively, “I’m sure I am fonder of rhinoceroses than either of you are,” that Anthea had told her to run along then. And she had run, catching the boys before that part of the road where Fitzroy Street suddenly becomes Fitzroy Square. “I think Babylon is most frightfully interesting,” said Anthea. “I do have such interesting dreams about it—at least, not dreams exactly, but quite as wonderful.” “Do sit down and tell me,” said he. So she sat down and told. And he asked her a lot of questions, and she answered them as well as she could.