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 exteriors, whited sepulchres--"
His voice stopped--exactly like when you hit a neighbour's gramophone with a well-aimed
brick, the same instant silence, and the rustle of the paper stopped, and everything was
still. . . .
"Have you done with my hat?" I said, after an interval.
There was no answer.
I stared at Gip, and Gip stared at me, and there were our distortions in the magic mirrors,
looking very rum, and grave, and quiet. . . .
"I think we'll go now," I said. "Will you tell me how much all this comes to? . . . .
"I say," I said, on a rather louder note, "I want the bill; and my hat, please."
It might have been a sniff from behind the paper pile. . . .
"Let's look behind the counter, Gip," I said. "He's making fun of us."