The Rescue
her the chariot she wanted. But when it was all over and they were part of a hot, tightly packed crowd pouring out of the dusty tent into the sunshine, their responsibilities came upon them with renewed force.
"Wasn't the clown ripping?" said Bernard, as they got free of the crowd.
"I liked the riding-habit lady best, and the horse that went like that, best," said Kathleen, trying with small pale hands and brown shod legs to give an example of a horses conduct during an exhibition of the haute école.
"Didn't you think the elephant—" Mavis was beginning, when Francis interrupted her.
"About that chariot," he said, and after that they talked of nothing else. And whatever they said it always came to this in the end, that they hadn't got a chariot, and couldn't get a chariot, and that anyhow they didn't suppose there was a chariot to be got, at any rate in Beachfield.
"It wouldn't be any good, I suppose," said Kathleen's last and most helpful suggestion—"be the slightest good saying ‘Sabrina fair' to a pumpkin?"
"We haven't got even a pumpkin," Bernard reminded her, "let alone the rats and mice and lizards that Cinderella had. No, that's no good. But I'll tell you what." He stopped short. They were near home now—it was late afternoon, in the road where the talkative yellowhammer lived. "What about a wheelbarrow?"
"Not big enough," said Francis.
"There's an extra big one in the mill," said Bernard. "Now, look here. I'm not any good at magic. But Uncle Tom said I was a born general. If I tell you exactly what to do, will you two do it, and let Cathay and me off going?"
"Going to sneak out of it?" Francis asked bitterly.
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