I don't believe this! Peter said. Why is it respectable not to know how to do things? Is it respectable to light a fire with a bar of soap? That, Cha… - Diana Wynne Jones

People may wonder how Mitt came to join in the Holand Sea Festival, carrying a bomb, and what he thought he was doing. Mitt wondered himself by the end.

It is of course a magic carpet. Abdullah had heard that one before. He bowed over his tucked-up hands. Many and various are the virtues said to reside in carpets, he agreed. Which one does the poet of the sands claim for this? Does it welcome a man home to his tent? Does it bring peace to the hearth? Or maybe, he said, poking the frayed edge suggestively with one toe, it is said to never wear out?

If you stood up and told the truth in the wrong way, it was not true any longer, though it might be as powerful as ever.