"I wish, I wish," I exclaimed, walking round the little room, "I wish
I were--"

While these unfinished exclamations were actually passing my lips I
chanced to cross that infernal mat, and it is no more startling than
true, but at my word a quiver of expectation ran through that gaunt
web--a rustle of anticipation filled its ancient fabric, and one frayed
corner surged up, and as I passed off its surface in my stride, the
sentence still unfinished on my lips, wrapped itself about my left leg
with extraordinary swiftness and so effectively that I nearly fell into
the arms of my landlady, who opened the door at the moment and came in
with a tray and the steak and tomatoes mentioned more than once already.

It was the draught caused by the opening door, of course, that had made
the dead man's rug lift so strangely--what else could it have been?
I made this apology to the good woman, and when she had set the table
and closed the door took another turn or two about my den, continuing
as I did so my angry thoughts.

"Yes, yes," I said at last, returning to the stove and taking my stand,
hands in pockets, in front of it, "anything were better than this, any
enterprise however wild, any adventure however desperate. Oh, I wish I
were anywhere but here, anywhere out of this redtape-ridden world of ours!
I WISH I WERE IN THE PLANET MARS!"

How can I describe what followed those luckless words? Even as I spoke
the magic carpet quivered responsively under my feet, and an undulation
went all round the fringe as though a sudden wind were shaking it.
It humped up in the middle so abruptly that I came down sitting with
a shock that numbed me for the moment. It threw me on my back and