But Anthea was a really first-class sister. She did not say a word till she had got out the Scotch heather-mixture fingering wool, and the darning-needle and the thimble and the scissors, and by that time she had been able to get the better of her natural wish to be thoroughly disagreeable, and was able to say quite kindly:-- "Never mind, Squirrel, I'll soon mend it." Cyril thumped her on the back. He understood exactly how she had felt, and he was not an ungrateful brother. "Respecting the purse containing coins," the Phoenix said, scratching its invisible ear thoughtfully with its shining claw, "it might be as well, perhaps, to state clearly the amount which you wish to find, as well as the country where you wish to find it, and the nature of the coins which you prefer. It would be indeed a cold moment when you should find a purse containing but three oboloi." "How much is an oboloi?" "An obol is about twopence halfpenny," the Phoenix replied. "Yes," said Jane, "and if you find a purse I suppose it is only because someone has lost it, and you ought to take it to the policeman." "The situation," remarked the Phoenix, "does indeed bristle with difficulties." "What about a buried treasure," said Cyril, "and everyone was dead that it belonged to?" "Mother wouldn't believe _that_," said more than one voice. "Suppose," said Robert--"suppose we asked to be taken where we could find a purse and give it back to the person it belonged to, and they would give us something for finding it?" "We aren't allowed to take money from strangers. You know we aren't, Bobs," said Anthea, making a knot at the end of a needleful of Scotch heather-mixture fingering wool (which is very wrong, and you must never do it when you are darning). "No, _that_ wouldn't do," said Cyril. "Let's chuck it and go to the North Pole, or somewhere really interesting." "No," said the girls together, "there must be _some_ way." "Wait a sec," Anthea added. "I've got an idea coming. Don't speak." There was a silence as she paused with the darning-needle in the air. Suddenly she spoke:-- "I see. Let's tell the carpet to take us somewhere where we can get the money for mother's present, and--and--and get it some way that she'll believe in and not think wrong." "Well, I must say you are learning the way to get the most out of the carpet," said Cyril. He spoke more heartily and kindly than usual, because he remembered how Anthea had refrained from snarking him about tearing the carpet. "Yes," said the Phoenix, "you certainly are. And you have to remember that if you take a thing out it doesn't stay in." No one paid any attention to this remark at the time, but afterwards everyone thought of it. "Do hurry up, Panther," said Robert; and that was why Anthea did hurry up and why the big darn in the middle of the carpet was all open and webby like a fishing-net, not tight and close like woven cloth, which is what a good, well-behaved darn should be like.