“‘Why do you think so of a street?’
he asked, standing very still.
“‘Because I have always seen it do the
same thing,’ I replied, in reasonable anger.
’Day after day, year after year, it has always
gone to Oldgate Station; day after . . .’
“I stopped, for he had flung up his head with
the fury of the road in revolt.
“‘And you?’ he cried terribly.
’What do you think the road thinks of you?
Does the road think you are alive? Are you alive?
Day after day, year after year, you have gone to Oldgate
Station. . . .’ Since then I have respected
the things called inanimate.”
And bowing slightly to the mustard-pot, the man in
the restaurant withdrew.
The Shop Of Ghosts
Nearly all the best and most precious things in the
universe you can get for a halfpenny. I make
an exception, of course, of the sun, the moon, the
earth, people, stars, thunderstorms, and such trifles.
You can get them for nothing. Also I make an
exception of another thing, which I am not allowed
to mention in this paper, and of which the lowest
price is a penny halfpenny. But the general principle
will be at once apparent. In the street behind
me, for instance, you can now get a ride on an electric
tram for a halfpenny. To be on an electric tram
is to be on a flying castle in a fairy tale.
You can get quite a large number of brightly coloured
sweets for a halfpenny. Also you can get the
chance of reading this article for a halfpenny; along,
of course, with other and irrelevant matter.
But if you want to see what a vast and bewildering
array of valuable things you can get at a halfpenny
each you should do as I was doing last night.
I was gluing my nose against the glass of a very
small and dimly lit toy shop in one of the greyest
and leanest of the streets of Battersea. But
dim as was that square of light, it was filled (as
a child once said to me) with all the colours God
ever made. Those toys of the poor were like the
children who buy them; they were all dirty; but they
were all bright. For my part, I think brightness
more important than cleanliness; since the first is
of the soul, and the second of the body. You
must excuse me; I am a democrat; I know I am out of
fashion in the modern world.
. . . . .
As I looked at that palace of pigmy wonders, at small
green omnibuses, at small blue elephants, at small
black dolls, and small red Noah’s arks, I must
have fallen into some sort of unnatural trance.
That lit shop-window became like the brilliantly lit
stage when one is watching some highly coloured comedy.
I forgot the grey houses and the grimy people behind
me as one forgets the dark galleries and the dim crowds
at a theatre. It seemed as if the little objects
behind the glass were small, not because they were
toys, but because they were objects far away.
The green omnibus was really a green omnibus, a green
