 STORY 1 OF THE MAGIC WORLD To have your haircut is not painful, nor does it hurt to have your whiskers trimmed, but round wooden shoes, shaped like bowls, are not comfortable wear, however much it may amuse the onlooker to see you try to walk in them. If you have a nice fur coat like a company promoter's, it is most annoying to be made to swim in it. And if you had a tail, surely it would be solely your own affair, that any one should tie a tin can to it, would strike you as an unwarrantable impertinence, to say the least. Yet it is difficult for an outsider to see these things from the point of view of both the persons concerned. To Morris, scissors in hand, alive and earnest to snip, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to shorten the stiff whiskers of Lord Hugh Cecil by a generous inch. He did not understand how useful those whiskers were to Lord Hugh, both in sport and in the more serious business of getting a living. Also it amused Morris to throw Lord Hugh into ponds, though Lord Hugh only once permitted this liberty. To put walnuts on Lord Hugh's feet, and then to watch him walk on ice, was, in Morris's opinion, as good as a play. Lord Hugh was a very favourite cat, but Morris was discreet, and Lord Hugh, except under violent suffering, was at that time anyhow dumb. At the empty sardine tin attached to Lord Hugh's tail and hind legs, this had a voice, and rattling against stairs, banisters, and the legs of stricken furniture, it cried aloud for vengeance. Lord Hugh, suffering violently, added his voice, and this time the family heard. There was a chase, a chorus of poor pussy, and pussy then! And the tail and the tin and Lord Hugh were caught under Jane's bed. The tail and the tin acquiesced in their rescue. Lord Hugh did not. He fought, scratched, and bit. Jane carried the scars of that rescue for many a long week. When all was calm, Morris was sought, and after some little natural delay, found in the boot cupboard. Oh, Morris! His mother almost sobbed, how can you? What will your father say? Morris thought he knew what his father would do. Don't you know, the mother went on, how wrong it is to be cruel. I didn't mean to be cruel, Morris said, and what is more, he spoke the truth. All the unwelcome attentions he had showered on Lord Hugh had not been exactly intended to hurt that stout veteran. Only it was interesting to see what a cat would do if you threw it in the water, or cut its whiskers, or tied things to its tail. Oh! But you must have meant to be cruel, said mother, and you will have to be punished. I wish I hadn't, said Morris from the heart. So do I, said his mother with a sigh, but it isn't the first time. You know you tied Lord Hugh up in a bag with their hedgehog, only last Tuesday week. You'd better go to your room and think it over. I shall have to tell your father directly he comes home. Morris went to his room and thought it over, and the more he thought, the more he hated Lord Hugh. Why couldn't the beastly cat have held his tongue and sat still? That at the time would have been a disappointment, but now Morris wished it had happened. He sat on the edge of his bed and savagely kicked the edge of the green kiddo-minster carpet and hated the cat. He hadn't meant to be cruel, he was sure he hadn't. He wouldn't have pinched the cat's feet, or squeezed its tail in the door, or pulled its whiskers, or poured hot water on it. He felt himself ill-used, and knew that he would feel still more so after the inevitable interview with his father. But that interview did not take the immediately painful form expected by Morris. His father did not say, now I will show you what it feels like to be hurt. Morris had braced himself for that, and was looking beyond it to the calm of forgiveness which should follow the storm in which he should so unwillingly take part. No, his father was already calm and reasonable, with a dreadful calm, a terrifying reason. Look here, my boy," he said, this cruelty to dumb animals must be checked, severely checked. I didn't mean to be cruel," said Morris. Evil, said Mr. Basingstoke, for such was Morris's surname, is wrought by want of thought as well as want of heart. What about your putting the hen in the oven? You know," said Morris, pale but determined. You know I only wanted to help her to get her eggs hatched quickly. It says in fouls for food and fancy that heat hatches eggs. But she hadn't any eggs, said Mr. Basingstoke. But she soon would have, urged Morris, I thought a stitch in time. That," said his father, is the sort of thing that you must learn not to think. I'll try," said Morris, miserably hoping for the best. I intend that you shall," said Mr. Basingstoke. This afternoon you go to Dr. Strongith Arms for the remaining week of term. If I find any more cruelty taking place during the holidays, you will go there permanently. You can go and get ready. "'Oh, father, please not," was all Morris found to say. "'I'm sorry, my boy,' said his father, much more kindly, "'it's all for your own good. And it's as painful to me as it is to you. Remember that. The cab will be here at four. Go and put your things together, and Jane shall pack for you." So the box was packed. Mabel, Morris's kiddie sister, cried over everything as it was put in. It was a very wet day. "'If it had been any school but old Strongs,' she sobbed. She and her brother knew that school well. Its windows dulled with wire-blinds, its big alarm-bell, the high walls of its grounds bristling with spikes, the iron gates always locked through which gloomy boys imprisoned scowled on a free world. Dr. Strongith Arms was a school for backward and difficult boys. Need I say more? Well, there was no help for it. The box was packed, the cab was at the door, the farewells had been said. Morris determined that he wouldn't cry, and he didn't, which gave him the one touch of pride and joy that such a scene could yield. Then at the last moment, just as father had one leg in the cab, the taxes called. Mother went back into the house to write a cheque. Mother and Mabel had retired in tears. Morris used the reprieve to go back after his postage stamp album. Already he was planning how to impress the other boys at Old Strongs, and his was really a very fair collection. He ran up into the school-room, expecting to find it empty. But someone was there. Lord Hugh, in the very middle of the ink-stained tablecloth. You brute! said Morris, you know jolly well I'm going away, or you wouldn't be here. And indeed the room had never, somehow, been a favourite of Lord Hughes. Meow! said Lord Hugh. You! said Morris with scorn, that's what you always say. All that fuss about a jolly little sardine tin, anyone would have thought you'd be only too glad to have it to play with. I wonder how you'd like being a boy, licking's and lessons and ampos and sent back from breakfast to wash your ears. You wash yours anywhere. I wonder what they'd say to me if I washed my ears on the drawing-room hearth-rug. Meow! said Lord Hugh, and washed an ear as though he was showing off. Meow! said Morris again, that's all you can say. Oh, now it isn't! said Lord Hugh, and stopped his ear-washing. I say, said Morris in awestruck tones, if you think cats have such a jolly time, said Lord Hugh, why not be a cat? I would if I could, said Morris, and fight you. Thank you, said Lord Hugh, but I can't, said Morris. Oh, yes you can, said Lord Hugh, you've only got to say the word. What word? Lord Hugh told him the word, but I will not tell you, for fear you should say it by accident and then be sorry. And if I say that I shall turn into a cat. Of course, said the cat. Oh yes, I see, said Morris, but I'm not taking any thanks. I don't want to be a cat for all ways. You needn't, said Lord Hugh, you've only got to get someone to say to you, please leave off being a cat and be Morris again, and there you are. Morris thought of Dr. Strong-It-Harms. He also thought of the horror of his father when he should find Morris gone, vanished, not to be traced. He'll be sorry then, Morris told himself, and to the cat he said suddenly, right, I'll do it. What's the word again? said the cat, said Morris, and suddenly the table shot up to the height of a house. The walls to the height of tenement buildings, the pattern on the carpet became enormous, and Morris found himself on all fours. He tried to stand up on his feet, but his shoulders were oddly heavy. He could only rear himself upright for a moment, and then fell heavily on his hands. He looked down at them. They seemed to have grown shorter and fatter, and were encased in black fur gloves. He felt a desire to walk on all fours. Tried it. Did it. It was very odd. The movement of the arms straight from the shoulder, more like the movement of the piston of an engine than anything Morris could think of at that moment. I'm asleep, said Morris. I'm dreaming this. I'm dreaming I'm a cat. I hope I dreamed that about the sardine tin, and Lord Hugh's tale, and Dr. Strong's. You didn't, said a voice he knew, and yet didn't know. And you aren't dreaming this. Yes, I am, said Morris, and now I'm going to dream that I fight that beastly black cat, and give him the best licking he ever had in his life. Come on, Lord Hugh." A loud laugh answered him. "'Excuse my smiling,' said the voice he knew, and didn't know. But don't you see? You are Lord Hugh.' A great hand picked Morris up from the floor, and held him in the air. He felt the position to be not only undignified, but unsafe, and gave himself a shake of mingled relief and resentment when the hand set him down on the inky tablecloth. "'You are Lord Hugh now, my dear Morris,' said the voice, and a huge face came quite close to his. It was his own face, as it would have seemed through a magnifying glass. And the voice—oh horror! The voice was his own voice, Morris' basing-stokes voice. Morris shrank from the voice, and he would have liked to claw the face, but he had had no practice. "'You are Lord Hugh,' the voice repeated. And I am Morris. I like being Morris. I am so large and strong. I could drown you in the water-butt, my poor cat, oh, so easily. No, don't spit and swear. It's bad manners, even in a cat.' "'Morris!' shouted Mr. Basing-stoke from between the door and the cab. Morris from habit leapt towards the door. "'It's no use your going,' said the thing that looked like a giant reflection of Morris. It's me he wants. But I didn't agree to your being me. "'That's poetry, even if it isn't grammar,' said the thing that looked like Morris. Why, my good cat, don't you see, that if you are I, I must be you. Otherwise we should interfere with time and space, upset the balance of power, and as likely as not destroy the solar system. Oh, yes, I'm you, right enough, and shall be, till someone tells you to change from Lord Hugh into Morris. And now you've got to find someone to do it.' "'Morris!' thundered the voice of Mr. Basing-stoke. "'That'll be easy enough,' said Morris.' "'Think so,' said the other. "'But I shan't try yet. I want to have some fun first. I shall catch heaps of mice.' "'Think so? You forget that your whiskers are cut off, Morris cut them. Without whiskers, how can you judge of the width of the places you go through? Take care you don't get stuck in a hole that you can't get out of, or go in through, my good cat.' "'Don't call me a cat,' said Morris, and felt that his tail was growing thick and angry. "'You are a cat, you know, and that little bit of temper that I see in your tail reminds me.' Morris felt himself gripped round the middle, abruptly lifted, and carried swiftly through the air. The quickness of the movement made him giddy. The light went so quickly past him that it might as well have been darkness. He saw nothing, felt nothing, except a sort of long sea sickness. And then suddenly he was not being moved. He could see now, he could feel. He was being held tight in a sort of vice, a vice covered with checkered cloth. It looked like the pattern very much exaggerated of his school knickerbockers. It was. He was being held between the hard, relentless knees of that creature that had once been Lord Hugh, and to whose tail he had tied a sardine tin. Now he was Lord Hugh, and something was being tied to his tail, something mysterious, terrible. Very well, he would show that he was not afraid of anything that could be attached to tails. The string rubbed his fur the wrong way, it was that that annoyed him, not the string itself. And as for what was at the end of the string, what could that matter to any sensible cat? Morris was quite decided that he was, and would keep on being, a sensible cat. The string, however, and the uncomfortable tight position between those checkered knees, something or other was getting on his nerves. Morris shouted his father below, and the becatted Morris bounded between the knees of the creature that wore his clothes and his looks. Coming farther, this thing called, and sped away, leaving Morris on the servant's bed, under which Lord Hugh had taken refuge with his tin can, so short and yet so long a time ago. The stairs re-echoed to the loud boots which Morris had never before thought loud. He had often indeed wondered that any one could object to them. He wondered now no longer. He heard the front door slam. That thing had gone to Dr. Strong-It-Harms. That was one comfort. Lord Hugh was a boy now. He would know what it was to be a boy. He, Morris, was a cat, and he meant to taste fully all catty pleasures, from milk to mice. Meanwhile, he was without mice or milk, and unaccustomed as he was to a tale, he could not but feel that all was not right with his own. There was a feeling of weight, a feeling of discomfort, of positive terror. If he should move, what would that thing that was tied to his tail do? Rattle, of course. Oh, but he could not bear it if that thing rattled. Nonsense! It was only a sardine tin. Yes, Morris knew that. But all the same, if it did rattle. He moved his tail the least little soft inch. No sound. Perhaps really there wasn't anything tied to his tail. But he couldn't be sure unless he moved. But if he moved, the thing would rattle. And if it rattled, Morris felt sure that he would expire or go mad. A mad cat! What a dreadful thing to be! Yet he couldn't sit on that bed for ever, waiting, waiting, waiting for the dreadful thing to happen. Oh, dear! sighed Morris the cat. I never knew what people meant by afraid before. His cat heart was beating heavily against his furry side. His limbs were getting cramped. He must move. He did. And instantly the awful thing happened. The sardine tin touched the iron of the bed-foot. It rattled. Oh, I can't bear it! I can't! cried poor Morris, in a heart-rending meow that echoed through the house. He leapt from the bed and tore through the door and down the stairs. And behind him came the most terrible thing in the world. People might call it a sardine tin, but he knew better. It was the soul of all the fear that ever had been or ever could be. It rattled. Morris, who was a cat, flew down the stairs. Down, down! The rattling horror followed. Oh, horrible! Down, down! At the foot of the stairs the horror caught by something. A banister, a stare-odd, stopped. The string on Morris's tail tightened. His tail was jerked. He was stopped. But the noise had stopped, too. Morris lay only just alive at the foot of the stairs. It was Mabel who untied the string and soothed his terrors with strokings and tender love-words. Morris was surprised to find what a nice little girl his sister really was. I'll never tease you again, he tried to say, softly. But that was not what he said. What he said was, Dear Pussy, nice poor Pussy, then, said Mabel, and she hid away the sardine tin and did not tell any one. This seemed unjust to Morris, until he remembered that, of course, Mabel thought that he was really Lord Hugh and that the person who had tied the tin to his tail was her brother Morris. Then he was half-grateful. She carried him down in soft, safe arms to the kitchen and asked Cook to give him some milk. Tell me to change back into Morris, said Morris, who was quite worn out by his cat-ish experiences. But no one heard him. What they heard was, Meow, meow, meow. Then Morris saw how he had been tricked. He could be changed back into a boy, as soon as anyone said to him, Leave off being a cat and be Morris again. But his tongue had no longer the power to ask anyone to say it. He did not sleep well that night. For one thing he was not accustomed to sleeping on the kitchen hearth-rug, and the black beetles were too many and too cordial. He was glad when Cook came down and turned him out into the garden, where the October frost still lay white on the yellowed stalks of sunflowers and mistersumes. He took a walk, climbed a tree, failed to catch a bird, and felt better. He began also to feel hungry. A delicious scent came stealing out of the back-kitchen door. Oh joy, there were to be herrings for breakfast! Morris hastened in and took his place on his usual chair. His mother said, Danpus! and gently tilted the chair so that Morris fell off it. Then the family had herrings. Morris said, You might give me some. And he said it so often that his father, who of course heard only mewings, said, For goodness sake put that cat out of the room! Morris breakfasted later in the dustbin on herring heads. But he kept himself up with a new and splendid idea. They would give him milk presently, and then they should see. He spent the afternoon sitting on the sofa in the dining-room, listening to the conversation of his father and mother. It is said that listeners never hear any good of themselves. Morris heard so much that he was surprised and humbled. He heard his father say that he was a fine, plucky little chap, but he needed a severe lesson, and Dr. Strong-It-Harm was the man to give it to him. He heard his mother say things that made his heart throb in his throat, and the tears prick behind those green cat-eyes of his. He had always thought his parents a little bit unjust. Now they did him so much more than justice that he felt quite small and mean inside his cat-skin. He's a dear good affectionate boy, said mother. It's only his high spirits. Don't you think, darling, perhaps you were a little hard on him? It was for his own good, said father. Of course, said mother, but I can't bear to think of him at that dreadful school. Well, father was beginning when Jane came in with the tea-things on a clattering tray, whose sound made Morris tremble in every leg. Father and mother began to talk about the weather. Morris felt very affectionately to both his parents. The natural way of showing this was to jump onto the sideboard and thence onto his father's shoulders. He landed there on his four padded feet, light as a feather, but father was not pleased. Bother the cat! he cried. Jane, put it out of the room. Morris was put out. His great idea, which was to be carried out with milk, would certainly not be carried out in the dining-room. He sought the kitchen, and seeing a milk-can on the window-edge, jumped up beside the can, and patted it as he had seen Lord Hugh do. My! said a friend of Jane's who happened to be there. Ain't that cat clever? A perfect moral, I call her. He's nothing to boast of this time, said Cook. I will say for Lord Hugh he's not often taken in with a empty can. This was naturally mortifying for Morris, but he pretended not to hear, and jumped from the window to the tea-table and patted the milk-jug. Come! said the cook, that's more like it! And she poured him out a full saucer and set it on the floor. Now was the chance Morris had longed for. Now he could carry out that idea of his. He was very thirsty, for he had had nothing since that delicious breakfast in the dustbin. But not for worlds would he have drunk the milk. No. He carefully dipped his right paw in it, for his idea was to make letters with it on the kitchen oil-cloth. He meant to write, Please tell me to leave off being a cat and be Morris again. But he found his paw a very clumsy pen, and he had to rub out the first pee, because it only looked like an accident. Then he tried again, and actually did make a pee that any fair-minded person could have read quite easily. I wish they'd noticed, he said. And before he got the L written, they did notice. Drat the cat, said Cook, look how he's messing the floor up. And she took away the milk. Morris put pride aside, and mewed to have the milk put down again. But he did not get it. Very weary, very thirsty, and very tired of being Lord Hugh, he presently found his way to the schoolroom, where Mabel with patient Toil was doing her home lessons. She took him on her lap, and stroked him while she learned her French verb. He felt that he was growing very fond of her. People were quite right to be kind to dumb animals. Presently she had to stop stroking him and do a map. And after that she kissed him and put him down and went away. All the time she had been doing the map, Morris had had but one thought. Ink! The moment the door had closed behind her, how sensible people were who closed doors gently. He stood up in her chair with one paw on the mat, and the other on the ink. Unfortunately the ink stand top was made to dip pens in, and not to dip paws. But Morris was desperate. He deliberately upset the ink. Most of it rolled over the tablecloth, and fell pattering on the carpet. But with what was left he wrote quite plainly across the map. Please tell Lord Hugh to stop being a cat, and be Morris again. There, he said, they can't make any mistake about that. They didn't. But they made a mistake about who had done it, and Mabel was deprived of jam with her supper bread. Her assurance that some naughty boy must have come through the window and done it while she was not there, convinced nobody. And indeed the window was shocked and bolted. Morris, wild with indignation, did not mend matters by seizing the opportunity of a few minutes solitude to write, It was not Mabel, it was Morris, I mean Lord Hugh. Because when that was seen, Mabel was instantly sent to bed. It's not fair! cried Morris. My dear! said Morris's father. If that cat goes on mewing to this extent you'll have to get rid of it. Morris said not another word. It was bad enough to be a cat. But to be a cat that was got rid of. He knew how to do it. He knew how to do it. That cat that was got rid of. He knew how people got rid of cats. In a stricken silence he left the room and slunk up the stairs. He dared not mew again even at the door of Mabel's room. But when Jane went in to put Mabel's light out Morris crept in too. And in the dark tried with stifled mews and purrs to explain to Mabel how sorry he was. Mabel stroked him and he went to sleep. His last waking thought amazement at the blindness that had once made him call her a silly little kid. If you have ever been a cat you will understand something of what Morris endured during the dreadful days that followed. If you have not I can never make you understand fully. There was the affair of the fishmonger's tray balanced on the wall by the back door, the delicious curled-up whiting. Morris knew as well as you do that one mustn't steal fish out of other people's trays but the cat that he was didn't know. There was an inward struggle and Morris was beaten by the cat nature. Later he was beaten by the cook. Then there was that very painful incident with the butcher's dog, the flight across gardens, the safety of the plum tree gained only just in time. And worst of all despair took hold of him for he saw that nothing he could do would make anyone say those simple words that would release him. He had hoped that Mabel might at last be made to understand but the ink had failed him. She did not understand his subdued mewings and when he got the cardboard letters and made the same sentence with them Mabel only thought it was that naughty boy who came through locked windows. Somehow he could not spell before anyone his nerves were not what they had been. His brain now gave him no new ideas. He felt that he was really growing like a cat in his mind. His interest in his meals grew beyond even what it had been when they were a school boy's meals. He hunted mice with growing enthusiasm though the loss of his whiskers to measure narrow places with made hunting difficult. He grew expert in bird stalking and often got quite near to a bird before it flew away laughing at him. But all the time in his heart he was very, very miserable and so the week went by. Morris in his cat shape dreaded more and more the time when Lord Hugh in the boy shape should come back from Doctor Strongit's arms. He knew who better exactly the kind of things boys do to cats and he trembled to the end of his handsome half Persian tail. And then the boy came home from Doctor Strongit's arms and at the first sound of his boots in the hall Morris in the cat's body fled with silent haste here ten minutes later the boy that had come back from Doctor Strongit's arms found him. Morris fluffed up his tail and unsheathed his claws whatever this boy was going to do to him Morris meant to resist and his resistance should hurt the boy as much as possible. I'm sorry to say Morris swore softly among the boots but cat swearing was not really wrong. Come out you old duffer said Lord Hugh in the boy's shape of Morris. I'm not going to hurt you I'll see to that said Morris backing into the corner all teeth and claws. Oh I've had such a time said Lord Hugh. It's no use you know old chap I can see where you are by your green eyes by the word they do shine. I've been camed and shut up in a dark room and given thousands of lines to write out. I've been beaten too if you come to that. Mewed Morris besides the butcher's dog it was an intense relief to speak to someone who could understand his muse. Well I suppose it's Pax for the future said Lord Hugh if you won't come out you won't please leave off being a cat and be Morris again. And instantly Morris amid a heap of galoshes and old tennis bats felt with a swelling heart that he was no longer a cat. No more of those undignified four legs those tiresome pointed so difficult to wash that furry coat that contentable tail and that terrible inability to express all one's feelings in two words Mew and Purr he scrambled out of the cupboard and the boots and galoshes fell off him like spray off a baser. He stood upright in those very checkered knicker-bockers so terrible when their knees held one vice-like while things were tied to one's tail. He was face to face with another boy exactly like himself. You haven't changed then but there can't be two Morris's. There shan't be not if I knew it said the other boy a boy's life's a dog's life quick before anyone comes quick what? asked Morris why tell me to leave off being a boy and to be Lord Hugh Cecil again? Morris told him at once and at once the boy was gone and there was Lord Hugh in his own shape purring politely yet with a watchful eye on Morris's movements oh you needn't be afraid old chap it's Pax right enough Morris murmured in the ear of Lord Hugh and Lord Hugh arching his back under Morris's stroking hand replied with a per meow that spoke volumes Morris here you are it is nice of you to be nice to Lord Hugh when it was because of him you he's a good old chap said Morris carelessly and you're not half a bad old girl see? Mabel almost wept for joy at this magnificent compliment and Lord Hugh himself took on a more happy and confident air please dismiss any fears which you may entertain that after this Morris became a model boy he didn't but he was much nicer than before the conversation which he heard when he was a cat makes him more patient with his father and mother and he is almost always nice to Mabel for he cannot forget all that she was to him when he wore the shape of Lord Hugh his father attributes all the improvement in his son's character to that weak at Dr. Strong it harms which as you know Morris never had Lord Hugh's character is unchanged cats learn slowly and with difficulty only Morris and Lord Hugh know the truth Morris has never told it to anyone except me and Lord Hugh is a very reserved cat he never at any time had that free flow of Mew which distinguished and endangered the cat hood of Morris of story one recording by Ruth Golding story two of the magic world this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Ruth Golding the magic world by E. Nesbit two the mixed mine the ship was first sighted off Dungeon S she was laboring heavily her paint was peculiar and her rig outlandish she looked like a golden ship out of a painted picture blessed if I ever see such a rig nor such lines neither old Horcursed said it was a late afternoon wild and grey slate coloured clouds drove across the sky like flocks of hurried camels the waves were purple and blue and in the west a streak of unnatural looking green light was all that stood for the splendours of sunset she do be a Raman said young Bennenden who had strolled along the beach with the glasses the gentleman gave him for saving the little boy from drowning don't know as I ever see another just like her I'd give half a dollar to any chap as can tell me where she hails from what port it is where they have ships of that cut said middle aged Tavisham to the group that had now gathered George exclaimed young Bennenden from under his field glasses she's going and she went her bow went down suddenly and she stood stern up in the water like a duck after rain then quite slowly with no unseemly hurry but with no moments change of what seemed to be her fixed purpose the ship sank and the grey rolling waves wiped out the place where she had been now I hope you will not expect me to tell you anything more about this ship because there is nothing more to tell what country she came from what port she was bound for what cargo she carried and what kind of tongue her crew spoke all these things are dead secrets and a dead secret is a secret that nobody knows no other secrets are dead secrets even I do not know this one or I would tell you at once for I at least have no secrets from you when ships go down off Dungeness things from them have a way of being washed up on the sands of that bay which curves from Dungeness to Folkestone where the sea has bitten a piece out of the land just such a half moon shaped piece as you bite out of a slice of bread and butter bits of wood tangled with ropes broken furniture ships biscuits in barrels and kegs that have held brandy seamen's chests I am sadder things that we will not talk about just now now if you live by the sea and are grown up you know that if you find anything on the seashore I don't mean starfish or razor shells or jellyfish and sea mice but anything out of a ship that you would really like to keep your duty is to take it up to the Coast Guard and say please I found this then the Coast Guard will send it to the proper authority and one of these days you'll get a reward of one third of the value of whatever it was that you picked up but two thirds of the value of anything or even three thirds of its value is not at all the same thing as the thing itself if it happened to be the kind of thing you want but if you are not grown up and do not live by the sea but in a nice little villa in a nice little suburb where all the furniture is new and the servants wear white aprons and white caps with long strings in the afternoon then you won't know anything about your duty and if you find anything by the sea you'll think that findings are keeping's Edward was not grown up and he kept everything he found including sea mice till the landlady of the lodgings where his aunt was threw his collection into the pig pail being a quiet and persevering little boy he did not cry or complain but having meekly followed his treasures to their long home the pig was six feet from nose to tail and ate the dead sea mouse as easily and happily as your father eats an oyster he started out to make a new collection and the first thing he found was an oyster shell that was pink and green and blue inside and the second was an old boot very old indeed and the third was it it was a square case of old leather embossed with odd little figures of men and animals and words that Edward could not read it was oblong and had no key but a sort of leather hasp and was curiously knotted with string rather like a boot place and Edward opened it there were several things inside queer looking instruments some rather like those in the little box of mathematical instruments that he had had a surprise at school and some like nothing he had ever seen before and in a deep groove of the russet-soaked velvet lining lay a neat little brass telescope t-squares and set squares and so forth are of little use on a sandy shore but you can always look through a telescope Edward picked it up and put it under his eye and tried to see through it a little tug that was sturdily puffing up channel he failed to find the tug and found himself gazing at a little cloud on the horizon as he looked it grew larger and darker and presently a spot of rain fell on his nose he rubbed it off on his jersey sleeve I am sorry to say and not on his handkerchief then he looked through the glass again but he found he needed both hands to keep it steady so he set down the box with the other instruments on the sand at his feet and put the glass to his eye again he never saw the box again for in his unpracticed efforts to cover the tug with his glass he found himself looking at the shore instead of at the sea the shore looked so odd that he could not make up his mind to stop looking at it he had thought it was a sandy shore but almost at once he saw that it was not sand but fine shingle and the discovery of this mistake surprised him so much that he kept on looking at the shingle through the little telescope which showed it quite plainly and as he looked the shingle grew coarser it was stones now quite decent sized stones, large stones enormous stones something hard pressed against his foot and he lowered the glass he was surrounded by big stones and they all seemed to be moving some were tumbling off others that lay in heaps below them they were rolling away from the beach in every direction and the place where he had put down the box was covered with great stones which he could not move Edward was very much upset he had never been accustomed to great stones that moved about when no one was touching them and he looked round for someone to ask how it had happened the only person in sight was another boy in a blue jersey with red letters on its chest hi! said Edward and the boy also said hi! come along here! said Edward and I'll show you something right oh! the boy remarked and came the boy was staying at the camp where the white tents were below the Grand Redout his home was quite unlike Edward's he also lived with his aunt the boy's home was very dirty and very small and nothing in it was ever in its right place there was no furniture to speak of the servants did not wear white caps with long streamers because there were no servants his uncle was a dock labourer and his aunt went out washing but he had felt just the same pleasure in being that Edward or you or I might have felt and he went climbing over the big stones to where Edward stood waiting for him in a sort of pit among the stones with the little telescope in his hand I say! said Edward did you see anyone move these stones I ain't only just come up on to the seawall said the boy who was called Gustus they all came round me said Edward rather pale I didn't see anyone shoving them are you a kid in all the boy inquired but I did said Edward on a bright I did I was just taking a squint through this little telescope I found and they came rolling up to me let's see what you found said Gustus and Edward gave him the glass and directed it with inexpert fingers to the seawall so little trodden that on it the grass grows and the sea pinks and even convolvulus and mock strawberry oh look cried Edward very loud look at the grass Gustus let the glass fall to long arms length and said crikey the grass and flowers on the seawall had grown a foot and a half quite tropical they looked well said Edward what's the matter with everything said Gustus we must both be a bit barmy seems to me what's barmy asked Edward off you jump loony like what you and me is said Gustus come on out of these air-paving stones there was a box said Edward a box I found with lots of jolly things in it I laid it down and said come on out come on out come on out come on come on come on come on I laid it down somewhere and ain't that it over there Gustus asked and levelled the glass at a dark object a hundred yards away nah it's only an old boot I say this is a fine spyglass it does make things come big that's not it I'm certain I put it down somewhere just here oh don't he snatched the glass from Gustus look he said look and pointed a hundred yards away stood a boot about as big as the bath you see Mara in at Madame Tussauds swell me said Gustus we're asleep both of us under dreaming as things grow while we look at them but we're not dreaming Edward objected you let me pinch you and you'll see no fun in that said Gustus tell you what it's the spyglass that's what it is ever see any cundering I see a chap at the Marlend Empire what made things turn into things like winking it's the spyglass that's what it is it can't be said the little boy who lived in a villa but it is said the little boy who lived in a slum teacher says there ain't no band to the wonders of science blessed if this ain't one of them let me look said Edward all right only you mark me whatever you set's eyes on grow and grow like the flower tree the cunder had under the wipe don't you look at me that's all hold on I'll put something up for you to look at a mark like something as doesn't matter he fumbled in his pocket and brought out a boot place I hold this up he said and you look next moment he had dropped the boot place which swollen as it was with the magic of the glass lay like a snake on the stone at his feet so the glass was a magic glass as of course you know already my said Gustas wouldn't I like to look at my vitals through that there thus we find Edward of the villa and through him Gustas of the slum in possession of a unique instrument of magic what could they do with it this was the question which they talked over every time they met and they met continually Edward's aunt who at home watched him as cats watch mice rashly believed that at the seaside there was no mischief for a boy to get into and the gentleman who commanded the tented camp believed in the ennobling effects of liberty after the boot neither had dared to look at anything through the telescope and so they looked at it and polished it on their sleeves till it shone again both were agreed that it would be a fine thing to get some money and look at it so that it would grow big but Gustas never had any pocket money and Edward had had his confiscated to pay for a window he had not intended to break Gustas felt certain that someone would find out about the spyglass and take it away from them his experience was that anything you happen to like was always taken away Edward knew that his aunt would want to take the telescope away to take care of for him this had already happened with the carved chessman that his father had sent him from India I've been thinking said Gustas on the third day when I'm a man I'm a gonna be a burglar you ask to use your headpiece in that trade I tell you so I don't think thinking swipes like some blokes do and I think perhaps it don't turn everything big and if we could find out what it don't turn big we could see what we wanted to turn big or what it didn't turn big and then it wouldn't turn anything big except what we wanted it to see Edward did not see and I don't suppose you do either Gustas went on to explain that teacher had told him there were some substances impervious to light and some to cold and so on and so forth and that what they wanted was a substance that should be impervious to the magic effects of the spyglass so if we get a tanner and set it on a plate and squint at it it will get bigger and we don't want to litter the place up with plates the bigness of cartwheels but if the plate didn't get big we could look at the tanner till it covered the plate and then go on looking and looking and looking and see nothing but the tanner till it was as big as a circus see this time Edward did see but they got no further because it was time to go to the circus there was a circus at dim church just then and that was what made Gustas think of the sixpence growing to that size it was a very nice circus and all the boys from the camp went to it also Edward who managed to scramble over and wriggle under benches till he was sitting near his friend it was the size of the elephant that did it Edward had not seen an elephant before and when he saw it instead of saying what a size he is as everybody else did he said to himself what a size I could make him and pulled out the spyglass and by a miracle of good luck or bad got it levelled at the elephant as it went by he turned the glass slowly as it went out the elephant only just got out in time another moment and it would have been too big to get through the door the audience cheered madly they thought it was a clever trick and so it would have been very clever you silly cuckoo said Gustas bitterly now you've turned that great thing loose on the country and how's his keeper to manage him I could make the keeper big too then if I was you I should just bunk out and do it Edward obeyed slipped under the canvas of the circus tent and found himself on the yellow trampled grass of the field among guy ropes orange peel banana skins and dirty paper far above him and everyone else towered the elephant now as big as the church Edward pointed the glass at the man who was patting the elephant's foot that was as far up as he could reach and telling it to come down with you he was very much frightened he did not know whether you could be put in prison for making an elephant's keeper about 40 times his proper size but he felt that something must be done to control the gigantic mountain of black-lead colored living flesh so he looked at the keeper through the spyglass and the keeper remained his normal size in the shock of this failure he dropped the spyglass picked it up and tried once more to fix the keeper instead he only got a circle of black-lead colored elephant he was trying to find the keeper and finding nothing but more and more of the elephant a shout startled him and he dropped the glass once more he was a very clumsy little boy was Edward well said one of the men what a turn it give me I thought Jumbo'd grown as big as a railway station so help me if I didn't now that's rum said another so did I Ernie ain't said a third seems to me he's a bit below his usual figure got a bit thin or something ain't he Edward slipped back into the tent unobserved it's all right he whispered to his friend he's gone back to his proper size and the man didn't change at all oh Guster said slowly oh all right conjuring's a rum thing you don't never know where you are don't you think you might as well be a conjurer as a burglar suggested Edward who had had his friend's criminal future rather painfully on his mind for the last hour you might said Guster's not me my people ain't dukes to set me up for a swell lay as conjuring now I'm gonna think I am you hold your jaw and look at the Ansem Donner a doing of a griceful bearback act that evening after tea Edward went, as he had been told to do to the place on the shore where the big stones had taught him the magic of the spyglass Guster's was already at the trist see here he said I'm a going to do something brave and fearless I am like Lord Nelson and the boy on the fire ship you out with that spyglass and I'll let you look at me then we'll know where we are but suppose you turn into a giant don't care sides I shan't other bloke didn't perhaps said Edward cautiously it only works by the seashore ah said Guster's reproachfully you've been a trying to thing that's what you've been a doing what about the elephant my eminent scientist now then very much afraid Edward pulled out the glass and looked and nothing happened that's number one said Guster's now number two he snatched the telescope from Edward's hand and turned it round and looked through the other end at the great stones Edward standing by saw them get smaller and smaller turned to pebbles to beach to sand has turned the glass to the giant grass and flowers on the seawall they also drew back into themselves got smaller and smaller and presently were as they had been before ever Edward picked up the magic spyglass now we know all about it I don't think said Guster's tomorrow we'll have a look at that there model engine of yours that you say works they did they had a look at it through the spyglass and it became a quite efficient motor of rather an odd pattern it is true and very bumpy but capable of quite a decent speed they went up to the hills in it and so odd was its design that no one who saw it ever forgot it people talk about that Bonnington and Aldington to this day they stopped often to use the spyglass on various objects trees for instance could be made to grow surprisingly and there were patches of giant wheat found that year near Ashford that were never satisfactorily accounted for blackberries too could be enlarged to a most wonderful and delicious fruit and the sudden growth of a fugitive toffee drop found in Edward's pocket and placed on the hand was a happy surprise when you scraped the pocket dirt off the outside you had a pound of delicious toffee not so happy was the incident of the earwig which crawled into view when Edward was enlarging a wild strawberry it had grown the size of a rat before the slow but horrified Edward gained courage to shake it off it was a beautiful drive as they came home they met a woman driving a weak looking little cow it went by on one side of the engine and the woman went by on the other when they were restored to each other the cow was nearly the size of a cart horse and the woman did not recognize it she ran back along the road after her cow which must she said have taken fright at the beastly motor she scolded violently as she went so the boys had to make the cow small again when she wasn't looking this is all very well said Gustus but we've got our fortune to make I don't think we've got to get hold of a tanner to be better but this was not possible because that broken window wasn't paid for and Gustus never had any money we ought to be the benefactors of the human race said Edward make all the good things more and all the bad things less and that was all very well but the cow hadn't been a great success as Gustus reminded him I see I shall have to do some more of my thinking he added they stopped in a quiet road close by Dimchurch the engine was made small again and Edward went home with it under his arm it was the next day that they found the shilling on the road they could hardly believe their good luck they went out onto the shore with it put it on Edward's hand and Gustus looked at it with the glass and the shilling began to grow it's as big as a saucer said Edward and it's heavy I'll rest it on these stones it's as big as a plate it's as big as a tea tray it's as big as a cartwheel and it was now said Gustus it's a cart to take it away come on but Edward could not come on his hand was in the hollow between the two stones and above laid tons of silver he could not move and the stones couldn't move there was nothing for it but to look at the great round lump of silver through the wrong end of the spyglass till it got small enough for Edward to lift it and then unfortunately Gustus looked a little too long and the shilling, having gone back to its own size went a little further and it went to sixpony size and then went out altogether so nobody got anything by that and now came the time when, as was to be expected Edward dropped the telescope in his aunt's presence she said, what's that? picked it up with quite unfair quickness and looked through it and through the open window at a fishing boat which instantly swelled to the size of a man of war my goodness what a strong glass said the aunt isn't it? said Edward gently taking it from her he looked at the ship through the glass's other end till she got to her proper size again and then smaller he just stopped in time to prevent its disappearing altogether I'll take care of it for you said the aunt and for the first time in their lives Edward said no to his aunt it was a terrible moment Edward, quite frenzied by his own courage turned the glass on one object after another the furniture grew as he looked and when he lowered the glass the aunt was pinned fast between a monster table leg and a great chiffonier there, said Edward and I shan't let you out till you say you won't take it to take care of either oh, have it your own way said the aunt faintly and closed her eyes when she opened them the furniture was its right size and Edward was gone he had twinges of conscience but the aunt never mentioned the subject again I have reason to suppose that she supposed that she had had a fit of an unusual and alarming nature next day the boys in the camp were to go back to their slums Edward and Gustas parted on the seashore and Edward cried he had never met a boy whom he liked as he liked Gustas and Gustas himself was almost melted I will say for you you're more like a man and less like a snivelling white rabbit now than what you was when I met you well we ain't done nothing to speak of with that there conjuring trick of yours but we've had a right good time so long see you again someday Edward hesitated spluttered and still weeping flung his arms round Gustas yeah none of that said Gustas sternly if you ain't man enough to know better I am shake hands like a Britain write about face and part game he suited the action to the word Edward went back to his aunt snivelling defenceless but happy he had never had a friend except Gustas and now he had given Gustas the greatest treasure that he possessed for Edward was not such a white rabbit as he seemed and in that last embrace he had managed to slip the little telescope into the pocket of the reefer coat which Gustas wore ready for his journey it was the greatest treasure that Edward had but it was also the greatest responsibility so that while he felt the joy of self-sacrifice he also felt the rapture of relief life is full of such mixed moments and the holidays ended and Edward went back to his villa be sure he had given Gustas his home address and begged him for it but Gustas never did presently Edward's father came home from India and they left his aunt to her villa and went to live at a jolly little house on a sloping hill at Chiselhurst which was Edward's father's very own they were not rich and Edward could not go to a very good school and though there was enough to eat and wear what there was was very plain and Edward's father had been wounded and somehow had not got a pension now one night in the next summer Edward woke up in his bed with the feeling that there was someone in the room and there was a dark figure was squeezing itself through the window Edward was far too frightened to scream he simply lay and listened to his heart it was like listening to a cheap American clock the next moment a lantern flashed in his eyes and a masked face bent over him where does your father keep his money? said a muffled voice in the bank replied the wretched Edward truthfully I mean what he's got in the house in his trousers pocket said Edward only he puts it in the dressing table draw at night you must go and get it said the burglar for such he plainly was must I said Edward wondering how he could get out of betraying his father's confidence and being branded as a criminal yes said the burglar in an awful voice get up and go said Edward and he was as much surprised at his courage as you are bravo said the burglar flinging off his mask I see you aren't such a white rabbit as what I thought you it's Gustas said Edward oh Gustas I'm so glad oh Gustas I'm so sorry I always hoped you wouldn't be a burglar and now you are I am so said Gustas with pride but he added sadly this is my first burglary couldn't it be the last suggested Edward that replied Gustas depends on you I'll do anything said Edward anything you see said Gustas sitting down on the edge of the bed with the dark lantern in one hand and the mask in the other when you're as hard up as we are there's not much of a living to be made honest I'm sure I wonder we don't all of us turn burglar so I do and that glass of yours you little beggar you did me proper sticking to that thing in my pocket like what you did well it kept us alive last winter that's a suit I used to look at the vitals with it like what I said I would a fardensworth of peas pudding was a dinner for three when that glass was about and a penis of scraps turned into a big beef steak almost they used to wonder how I got so much for the money but I'm always afraid of being found out or are losing the blessed spyglass or of someone pinching it so we got to do what I always said make some use of it and if I go along and knit your father's dibs we'll make our fortunes right away no said Edward but I'll ask father rot Gusters was crisp and contemptuous he'd think you was off your jump and he'd get me lagged it would be stealing said Edward not when you'll pay it back yes it would said Edward oh don't ask me I can't then I shall said Gusters where's his room oh don't I've got a half sovereign of my own I'll give you that log said Gusters why the blue monkeys couldn't you say so come on he pulled Edward out of bed by the leg hurried his clothes on anyhow and half dragged half coaxed him through the window and down by the ivy and the chickenhouse roof they stood face to face in the sloping garden and Edward's teeth chattered Gusters caught him by his hand and led him away at the other end of the shrubbery where the rockery was Gusters stooped and dragged out a big clinker then another and another there was a hole like a big rabbit hole if Edward had really been a white rabbit it would just have fitted him I'll go first said Gusters and went head foremost come on he said hollowly from inside and Edward too went it was dreadful crawling into that damp hole in the dark as his head got through the hole he saw that it led to a cave and below him stood a dark figure the lantern was on the ground come on said Gusters I'll catch you if you fall with a rush and a scramble Edward got in it's caves said Gusters a chap I know that goes about the country bottoming cane chairs he told me about it and I know about and found he lived here he thought what a go so now we'll put your half-shiner down and look at it and we'll have a gold mine and you can pretend to find it Harves said Edward briefly and firmly you're a man said Gusters now then he led the way through a maze of chalk caves till they came to a convenient spot which he had marked and now Edward his pockets on the sand he had brought all the contents of his money-box and there was more silver than gold and more copper than either and more odd rubbish than there was anything else you know what a boy's pockets are like stones and putty and slate pencils and marbles I urge an excuse that Edward was a very little boy a bit of plasticine and two bits of woods no time to sort him said Gusters and putting the lantern in a suitable position he got out the glass and began to look through it at the tumbled heap and the heap began to grow it grew out sideways till it touched the walls of the recess and outwards till it touched the top of the recess and then it slowly worked out into the big cave and came nearer and nearer to the boys everything grew stones, putty money, wood, plasticine Edward patted the growing mass as though it were alive and he loved it and Gusters said his clothes and beef and bread and tea and coffee and backey and a good school and me an engineer I see all are growing hi stop said Edward suddenly Gusters dropped the telescope it rolled away into the darkness now you've done it said Edward what said Gusters my hand said Edward it's fast between the rock and the golden things find the glass and make it go smaller so that I can get my hand out but Gusters could not find the glass and what is more no one ever has found it to this day it's no good said Gusters at last I'll go and find your father they must come and dig you out of this precious Tom Tiddler's ground and they'll lag you if they see you you said they would said Edward not at all sure what lagging was but sure that it was something dreadful write a letter and put it in his letterbox they'll find it in the morning and leave you pinned by the end all night lightly I don't think said Gusters I'd rather said Edward bravely but his voice was weak I couldn't bear you to be lagged Gusters I do love you so none of that said Gusters sternly I'll leave you the lamp I can find my way with matches keep up your pecker and never say die I won't said Edward bravely oh Gusters that was how it happened that Edward's father was roused from slumbers by violent shakings from an unknown hand while an unknown voice uttered these surprising words Edward is in the golden silver and copper mine that we found under your garden come and get him out when Edward's father was at last persuaded that Gusters was not a silly dream and this took some time he got up he did not believe a word that Gusters said even when Gusters added so help me which he did several times when Edward was empty his clothes gone Edward's father got the gardener from next door with at the suggestion of Gusters a pick the hole in the rockery was enlarged and they all got in and when they got to the place where Edward was there sure enough was Edward pinned by the hand between a piece of wood and a piece of rock Edward never noticed any metal Edward had fainted they got him out a couple of strokes with the pick released his hand but it was bruised and bleeding they all turned to go but they had not gone twenty yards before there was a crash and a loud report like thunder and a slow rumbling rattling noise very dreadful to hear get out of this quick, sir said the gardener the roofs fell in this part of the caves ain't safe Edward was very feverish and ill for several days during which he told his father the whole story of which his father did not believe a word but he was kind to Gusters because Gusters was evidently fond of Edward when Edward was well enough then his father and he found that a good deal of the shrubbery had sunk so that the trees looked as though they were growing in a pit it spoiled the look of the garden and Edward's father decided to move the trees to the other side when this was done the first tree uprooted showed a dark hollow below it the man is not born who will not examine and explore a dark hollow in his own grounds so Edward's father explored this is the true story of the discovery of that extraordinary vein of silver copper and gold which has excited so much interest in scientific and mining circles learned papers have been written about it learned professors have been rude to each other about it but no one knows how it came there except Gusters and Edward and you and me Edward's father is quite as ignorant as anyone else but he is much richer than most of them and at any rate he knows that it was Gusters who first told him of the gold mine and who risked being lagged, arrested by the police that is rather than let Edward wait till morning to stand fast between wood and rock so Edward and Gusters have been to a good school and now they're at Winchester and presently they will be at Oxford and when Gusters is twenty-one he will have half the money that came from the gold mine and then he and Edward mean to start a school of their own and the boys who are to go to it are to be the sort of boys who go to the summer camp of the grand redoubt near the sea the kind of boy that Gusters was so the spyglass will do some good after all though it was so unmanageable to begin with perhaps it may even be found again but I rather hope it won't it might really have done much more mischief than it did and if anyone found it it might do more yet there is no moral to this story except but no there is no moral end of story two recording by Ruth Golding