‘We don’t know,’ groaned Moorcus, ‘and how I wish it weren’t so, he was much nicer as a toast rack. How I wish he were again. He was such a good toast rack, but such an indifferent person. Granny said in time he should probably grow back into smart silver, but he hasn’t, he stays here day after day, plaguing me. There’s been doctors come in from Filching, special ones, but they’re useless, they can’t toast rack him. I’m to be trousered soon, very soon, and then to marry my Horryit, but whatever shall she say when she sees a toast rack like this one?’

‘But it’s wonderful!’ I cried. ‘The very best news!’

‘It’s terrible,’ said Moorcus, ‘the very worst.’

‘It means,’ I cried, ‘it means, James Henry Hayward, my very dear plug, and I might be about in the world at once. It means that there is some way of breaking the business of birth objects. How, Moorcus, how did you do it?’

‘I didn’t do anything,’ he said. ‘I went to bed, just as I always did, but then in the morning, where my toast rack usually was … my toast rack wasn’t, and that was there in its place, which was quite a shock I can tell you.’

‘But you must have done something different, think, Moorcus, think!’

‘I tell you there was nothing different.’

‘There must have been.’

‘Nothing at all.’

‘Think, Moorcus,’ I cried, ‘would it help if I used the skillet?’

‘Yes, use the skillet,’ said Rowland, ‘use it by all means. That’s sure to help.’

‘Please, please, Clod,’ begged Moorcus.

‘Rowland Collis, did you do anything else?’

‘Can’t remember and there’s the truth on it.’

‘Do you remember how it was, being a toast rack?’

‘Can’t remember. And there’s the truth on it.’

‘Do you remember who you were before you came to be a toast rack?’

He paused a while and said sadly, ‘Can’t remember. Can’t. And there’s the truth on it.’

‘Perhaps it shall come back to you, Rowland, in time.’

‘Might I have a turn with the skillet?’ asked Rowland.

‘Don’t give it to him, Clod, please,’ pleaded Moorcus. ‘How fine you look in your trousers. What a figure you cut.’

‘Don’t you try it on with me, Moorcus,’ I said.

‘Clod,’ said Lucy, ‘we shouldn’t stay here. Surely we shouldn’t. Let us go, Clod. If they find me, Clod, and they mean to find me, they shall kill me, they’ve said as much.’

‘Kill you?’

‘Yes, she is right there,’ said Moorcus, ‘they will kill her. I heard Sturridge saying so.’

‘Help me, Clod, get me out.’