“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 downtrodden 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 extraordinary 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!”