Twelve Stories and a Dream Read Online Free PDF

a
business-card from his cheek and handed it to me. "Genuine," he
said, with his finger on the word, and added, "There is absolutely no
deception, sir."
    He seemed to be carrying out the joke pretty thoroughly, I thought.
    He turned to Gip with a smile of remarkable affability. "You, you know,
are the Right Sort of Boy."
    I was surprised at his knowing that, because, in the interests of
discipline, we keep it rather a secret even at home; but Gip received it
in unflinching silence, keeping a steadfast eye on him.
    "It's only the Right Sort of Boy gets through that doorway."
    And, as if by way of illustration, there came a rattling at the door,
and a squeaking little voice could be faintly heard. "Nyar! I WARN 'a go
in there, dadda, I WARN 'a go in there. Ny-a-a-ah!" and then the accents
of a down-trodden parent, urging consolations and propitiations. "It's
locked, Edward," he said.
    "But it isn't," said I.
    "It is, sir," said the shopman, "always—for that sort of child," and as
he spoke we had a glimpse of the other youngster, a little, white face,
pallid from sweet-eating and over-sapid food, and distorted by evil
passions, a ruthless little egotist, pawing at the enchanted pane.
"It's no good, sir," said the shopman, as I moved, with my natural
helpfulness, doorward, and presently the spoilt child was carried off
howling.
    "How do you manage that?" I said, breathing a little more freely.
    "Magic!" said the shopman, with a careless wave of the hand, and behold!
sparks of coloured fire flew out of his fingers and vanished into the
shadows of the shop.
    "You were saying," he said, addressing himself to Gip, "before you came
in, that you would like one of our 'Buy One and Astonish your Friends'
boxes?"
    Gip, after a gallant effort, said "Yes."
    "It's in your pocket."
    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