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Wet Magic could drive swiftly hence, and driving into the sea I could drop from the chariot and escape while you swam ashore."

"I don't believe we could—any of it," said Bernard, "let alone swimming ashore with horses and chariots. Why, Pharaoh himself couldn't do that, you know." And even Mavis and Francis added helplessly, "I don't see how we're to get a chariot," and "do you think of some other way."

"I shall await you," said the lady in the tank with perfect calmness, "at dead of night."

With that she twisted the seaweed closely around her head and shoulders and sank slowly to the bottom of the tank. And the children were left staring blankly at each other, while in the circus tent music sounded and the soft heavy pad-pad of hoofs on sawdust.

"What shall we do?" Francis broke the silence.

"Go and see the circus, of course," said Bernard.

"Of course we can talk about the chariot afterward," Mavis admitted.

"There'll be lots of time to talk between now and dead of night," said Kathleen. "Come on, Bear."

And they went.

There is nothing like a circus for making you forget your anxieties. It is impossible to dwell on your troubles and difficulties when performing dogs are displaying their accomplishments, and wolves dancing their celebrated dance with the flags of all nations, and the engaging lady who jumps through the paper hoops and comes down miraculously on the flat back of the white horse, cannot but drive dull care away, especially from the minds of the young. So that for an hour and a half—it really was a good circus, and I can't think how it happened to be at Beachfield Fair at all—a solid slab of breathless enjoyment was wedged in between the interview with the Mermaid and the difficult task of procuring for 44