It wasn't her name, but she had noticed that something of this sort is
always said when people become motherly and cry.

Then she went away.

"Lawdy," said the Mayor. "I didn't expect she'd go out by the door,
somehow. Look--she's left some sort of hardware over there in the
corner."

It was a broomstick.




CHAPTER II

THE COMMITTEE COMES TO MAGIC


I don't suppose for a moment that you know Mitten Island: it is a
difficult place to get to; you have to change 'buses seven times, going
from Kensington, and you have to cross the river by means of a ferry. On
Mitten Island there is a model village, consisting of several hundred
houses, two churches, and one shop.

It was the sixth member who discovered, after the committee meeting,
that the address on the forsaken broomstick's collar was: Number 100
Beautiful Way, Mitten Island, London.