"Let's have one more try at the maze. I hate giving things up," said
Gerald.

"I am so hungry!" said Jimmy.

"Why didn't you say so before?" asked Gerald bitterly.

"I wasn't before."

"Then you can't be now. You don't get hungry all in a minute.
What's that?"

That was a gleam of red that lay at the foot of the yew-hedge a thin
little line, that you would hardly have noticed unless you had been
staring in a fixed and angry way at the roots of the hedge.

It was a thread of cotton. Gerald picked it up. One end of it was
tied to a thimble with holes in it, and the other--

"There is no other end," said Gerald, with firm triumph. "It's a clew
that's what it is. What price cold mutton now? I've always felt
something magic would happen some day, and now it has."

"I expect the gardener put it there," said Jimmy.

"With a Princess's silver thimble on it? Look! there's a crown on
the thimble."

There was.