"It doesn't matter," said Robert sulkily, because he knew he had been
behaving rather like a pig. "No matter who wants him--there's no one
here to--anyhow."

"Ingratitude," said the Psammead, "is a dreadful vice."

"We're not ungrateful," Jane made haste to say, "but we didn't _really_
want that wish. Robert only just said it. Can't you take it back and
give us a new one?"

"No--I can't," the Sand-fairy said shortly; "chopping and changing--it's
not business. You ought to be careful what you _do_ wish. There was a
little boy once, he'd wished for a Plesiosaurus instead of an
Ichthyosaurus, because he was too lazy to remember the easy names of
everyday things, and his father had been very vexed with him, and had
made him go to bed before tea-time, and wouldn't let him go out in the
nice flint boat along with the other children,--it was the annual
school-treat next day,--and he came and flung himself down near me on
the morning of the treat, and he kicked his little prehistoric legs
about and said he wished he was dead. And of course then he was."

"How awful! said the children all together.

"Only till sunset, of course," the Psammead said; "still it was quite
enough for his father and mother. And he caught it when he woke up--I
tell you. He didn't turn to stone--I forget why--but there must have
been some reason. They didn't know being dead is only being asleep, and
you're bound to wake up somewhere or other, either where you go to sleep
or in some better place. You may be sure he caught it, giving them such