Page:Fivechildren.djvu/171

 one thing to say you're silly, and quite another to say that other people are.

"Child," said the Sand-fairy sleepily, "I can only advise you to think before you speak"—

"But I thought you never gave advice."

"That piece doesn't count," it said. "You'll never take it! Besides, it's not original. It's in all the copy-books."

"But won't you just say if you think wings would be a silly wish?"

"Wings?" it said. "I should think you might do worse. Only, take care you aren't flying high at sunset. There was a little Ninevite boy I heard of once. He was one of King Sennacherib's sons, and a traveller brought him a Psammead. He used to keep it in a box of sand on the palace terrace. It was a dreadful degradation for one of us, of course; still the boy was the Assyrian King's son. And one day he wished for wings and got them. But he forgot that they would turn into stone at sunset, and when they did he fell on to one of the winged lions at the top of his father's great staircase; and what with his