"Well, then," said Elfrida slowly, "we are. . . . You listen hard and believe with both hands and with all your might, or you won't be able to believe at all. We are not what we seem, Edred and I. We don't really belong here at all. I don't know what's become of the real Elfrida and Edred who belong to this time. Haven't we seemed odd to you at all? Different, I mean, from the Edred and Elfrida you've been used to?"
The remembrance of the stopped-clock feeling came strongly on Dickie and he nodded.
"Well, that's because we're not them. We don't belong here. We belong three hundred years later in history. Only we've got a charm—because in our time Edred is Lord Arden, and there's a white mole who helps us, and we can go anywhere in history we like."
"Not quite," said Edred.
"No; but there are chests of different clothes, and whatever clothes we put on we come to that time in history. I know it sounds like silly untruths," she added rather sadly, "and I knew you wouldn't believe it, but it is true. And now we're going back to our times—Queen Alexandra, you know, and King Edward the Seventh and electric light and motors and 1908. Don't try to believe it if it hurts you, Dickie dear. I know it's most awfully rum—but it's the real true truth."
Richard said nothing. Had never thought it possible but that he was the only one to whom things like this happened.
"You don't believe it," said Edred complacently. "I knew you wouldn't."
Dickie felt a swimming sensation. It was impossible that this wonderful change should happen to any one besides himself. This just meant that the whole thing was a dream. And he said nothing.
"Never mind," said Elfrida in comforting tones; "don't try to believe it. I know you can't. Forget it. Or pretend we were just kidding you."
"Well, it doesn't matter," Edred said. "What can we do to pay out old Parrot-nose?"