or something silly. It’s in a dangerous mood.”
“Shall we go back home?” asked Mollie, in alarm.
“Of course not!” said Peter. “We’ll never turn our backs on an adventure!”
So on they went, the chair still doing its little tricks. At last Chinky really did get a bit frightened, for once Peter nearly fell off.
“Go down to earth at once, chair!” he commanded. The chair seemed cross. It didn’t want to go down—but it had to. So down it went, jiggling every now and again as if it really did mean to jerk the children off.
Peter looked down to see where they were going.
There was a village below them, and they seemed to be going down towards the roof of a house.
“Hope the chair doesn’t land on the roof!” said Peter. “It looks just as if it’s going to!”
But it did something even worse than land on the roof! What do you suppose it did?
It tried to go down the large red chimney belonging to the house! It really was behaving very foolishly!
Of course, it couldn’t possibly go down—and it stuck fast, three legs in, one out, and there it was, all sideways, with the children getting covered with soot and smoke!
Chinky climbed out first, and helped Peter and Mollie out too. They sat on the roof, holding on to the chimney, which felt rather hot, because warm smoke was coming out of it.
Chinky was very angry.
“I never thought the chair would be so silly!” he said. “It has acted so sensibly up to now. Now look what it’s done! It’s gone and stuck itself in somebody’s chimney, and goodness knows how we’re going to get it out! And here we are up on a roof in a village we don’t know!”
“It’s too bad,” said Mollie. “Look at my frock! All over soot.”
“We’d better shout and see if someone will get us down,” said Peter. So they shouted.
“Hie, hie, hie! Help! Hie, hie, hie!”
Soon a gnome heard their shouting, and came out to see what it was all about. When he saw the three children up on the roof and the chair in the chimney he was amazed. He shouted to his friends, and soon the whole village was staring upwards.
“Get a ladder and help us down!” shouted Peter. “Our chair has landed us in this fix!”
In a few minutes a long ladder was brought, and the children and Chinky climbed carefully down it to the ground. Chinky explained what had happened, and the village folk exclaimed in astonishment.
“The thing is,” said Peter. “ How are we going to get the chair out? It can’t stay there for the rest of its life, cooking in a chimney pot! Who would have thought it would have been so silly?”
“It’s trying to get out!” said Mollie suddenly. “Look, it’s wriggling!”
So it was. It did look funny! It tried its hardest to get out, but it was stuck much too tightly.
“It’s no good,” said Peter gloomily. “It will have to stay there. I don’t see how we can possibly get it out.”
“Of course we can!” said Chinky. “We’ll get the village sweep to come along and put his long brush up the chimney! Then the silly old chair will be swept out of the chimney! We will get into it when it comes to earth, and go home immediately before it has time to do anything silly again!”
“I’ll fetch the sweep!” said a round-faced gnome at once. “He lives next door to me.”
He ran off, and in a few minutes came back with a little sweep, looking rather black, carrying his bundle of poles. He stared in astonishment at the chair in the chimney.
“Can you push it out for us?” asked Chinky anxiously.
“I’ll try,” said the sweep. He went into the house and fitted the big round brush on to the first pole. He pushed it up the chimney. Then he fitted another pole on to the first one, and pushed that up the chimney too. So he went on until the brush was almost at the top. Then he fitted on his last pole, and prepared to give a good push.
Chinky, Mollie, and Peter were outside the house, watching the chair in the chimney. All the gnome
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