'Not in November, silly,' said Cyril; and the discussion got warmer
and warmer, and still nothing was settled.

'I vote we let the Phoenix decide,' said Robert, at last. So they
stroked it till it woke. 'We want to go somewhere abroad,' they
said, 'and we can't make up our minds where.'

'Let the carpet make up ITS mind, if it has one,' said the Phoenix.

'Just say you wish to go abroad.'

So they did; and the next moment the world seemed to spin upside
down, and when it was right way up again and they were ungiddy
enough to look about them, they were out of doors.

Out of doors--this is a feeble way to express where they were.
They were out of--out of the earth, or off it. In fact, they were
floating steadily, safely, splendidly, in the crisp clear air, with
the pale bright blue of the sky above them, and far down below the
pale bright sun-diamonded waves of the sea. The carpet had
stiffened itself somehow, so that it was square and firm like a
raft, and it steered itself so beautifully and kept on its way so
flat and fearless that no one was at all afraid of tumbling off.
In front of them lay land.

'The coast of France,' said the Phoenix, waking up and pointing
with its wing. 'Where do you wish to go? I should always keep one
wish, of course--for emergencies--otherwise you may get into an
emergency from which you can't emerge at all.'