'Owever,' he added, as the children disappeared, 'I ain't done so bad, seeing as I only give five bob for the beast.

But then there's the bites to take into account!' The children trembling in agitation and excitement, carried home the Psammead, trembling in its paper-bag.
When they got it home, Anthea nursed it, and stroked it, and would have cried over it, if she hadn't remembered how it hated to be wet.
When it recovered enough to speak, it said-- 'Get me sand; silver sand from the oil and colour shop.

And get me plenty.' They got the sand, and they put it and the Psammead in the round bath together, and it rubbed itself, and rolled itself, and shook itself and scraped itself, and scratched itself, and preened itself, till it felt clean and comfy, and then it scrabbled a hasty hole in the sand, and went to sleep in it.
The children hid the bath under the girls' bed, and had supper.

Old Nurse had got them a lovely supper of bread and butter and fried onions.
She was full of kind and delicate thoughts.
When Anthea woke the next morning, the Psammead was snuggling down between her shoulder and Jane's.
'You have saved my life,' it said.

'I know that man would have thrown cold water on me sooner or later, and then I should have died.