At any rate, there he was behind the counter—­a curious, sallow, dark man, with one ear larger than the other and a chin like the toe-cap of a boot.

“What can we have the pleasure?” he said, spreading his long magic fingers on the glass case; and so with a start we were aware of him.

“I want,” I said, “to buy my little boy a few simple tricks.”

“Legerdemain?” he asked.  “Mechanical?  Domestic?”

“Anything amusing?” said I.

“Um!” said the shopman, and scratched his head for a moment as if thinking.  Then, quite distinctly, he drew from his head a glass ball.  “Something in this way?” he said, and held it out.

The action was unexpected.  I had seen the trick done at entertainments endless times before—­it’s part of the common stock of conjurers—­but I had not expected it here.  “That’s good,” I said, with a laugh.

“Isn’t it?” said the shopman.

Gip stretched out his disengaged hand to take this object and found merely a blank palm.

“It’s in your pocket,” said the shopman, and there it was!

“How much will that be?” I asked.

“We make no charge for glass balls,” said the shopman politely.  “We get them”—­he picked one out of his elbow as he spoke—­“free.”  He produced another from the back of his neck, and laid it beside its predecessor on the counter.  Gip regarded his glass ball sagely, then directed a look of inquiry at the two on the counter, and finally brought his round-eyed scrutiny to the shopman, who smiled.  “You may have those two,” said the shopman, “and, if you don’t mind one from my mouth. So!”

Gip counselled me mutely for a moment, and then in a profound silence put away the four balls, resumed my reassuring finger, and nerved himself for the next event.

“We get all our smaller tricks in that way,” the shopman remarked.

I laughed in the manner of one who subscribes to a jest.  “Instead of going to the wholesale shop,” I said.  “Of course, it’s cheaper.”

“In a way,” the shopman said.  “Though we pay in the end.  But not so heavily—­as people suppose...  Our larger tricks, and our daily provisions and all the other things we want, we get out of that hat...  And you know, sir, if you’ll excuse my saying it, there isn’t a wholesale shop, not for Genuine Magic goods, sir.  I don’t know if you noticed our inscription—­the Genuine Magic Shop.”  He drew 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.