And leaning over the counter--he really had an extraordinarily

long body--this amazing person produced the article in the customary

conjurer's manner. "Paper," he said, and took a sheet out of

the empty hat with the springs; "string," and behold his mouth was

a string-box, from which he drew an unending thread, which when

he had tied his parcel he bit off--and, it seemed to me, swallowed

the ball of string. And then he lit a candle at the nose of one

of the ventriloquist's dummies, stuck one of his fingers (which

had become sealing-wax red) into the flame, and so sealed the parcel.

"Then there was the Disappearing Egg," he remarked, and produced

one from within my coat-breast and packed it, and also The Crying

Baby, Very Human. I handed each parcel to Gip as it was ready,

and he clasped them to his chest.



He said very little, but his eyes were eloquent; the clutch of

his arms was eloquent. He was the playground of unspeakable emotions.

These, you know, were REAL Magics. Then, with a start, I discovered

something moving about in my hat--something soft and jumpy. I whipped

it off, and a ruffled pigeon--no doubt a confederate--dropped out

and ran on the counter, and went, I fancy, into a cardboard box

behind the papier-mache tiger.



"Tut, tut!" said the shopman, dexterously relieving me of my headdress;

"careless bird, and--as I live--nesting!"



He shook my hat, and shook out into his extended hand two or three

eggs, a large marble, a watch, about half-a-dozen of the inevitable

glass balls, and then crumpled, crinkled paper, more and more and more,

talking all the time of the way in which people neglect to brush

their hats INSIDE as well as out, politely, of course, but with

a certain personal application. "All sorts of things accumulate,

sir. . . . Not YOU, of course, in particular. . . . Nearly every

customer. . . . Astonishing what they carry about with them. . . ."

The crumpled paper rose and billowed on the counter more and more

and more, until he was nearly hidden from us, until he was altogether

hidden, and still his voice went on and on. "We none of us know

what the fair semblance of a human being may conceal, sir. Are we

all then no better than brushed exteriors, whited sepulchres--"



His voice stopped--exactly like when you hit a neighbour's gramophone

with a well-aimed brick, the same instant silence, and the rustle

of the paper stopped, and everything was still. . . .



"Have you done with my hat?" I said, after an interval.



There was no answer.



I stared at Gip, and Gip stared at me, and there were our distortions

in the magic mirrors, looking very rum, and grave, and quiet. . . .





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