Part 9

Gustus let the glass fall to long arm's length and said 'Krikey!'

The grass and flowers on the sea-wall had grown a foot and a half--quite tropical they looked.

'Well?' said Edward.

'What's the matter wiv everyfink?' said Gustus. 'We must both be a bit balmy, seems ter me.'

'What's balmy?' asked Edward.

'Off your chump--looney--like what you and me is,' said Gustus. 'First I sees things, then I sees you.'

'It was only fancy, I expect,' said Edward. 'I expect the grass on the sea-wall was always like that, really.'

'Let's have a look through your spy-glass at that little barge,' said Gustus, still holding the glass. 'Come on outer these 'ere paving-stones.'

'There was a box,' said Edward, 'a box I found with lots of jolly things in it. 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. 'No; it's only an old boot. I say, this is a fine spy-glass. 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 Marat in at Madame Tussaud's.

'S'welp me,' said Gustus, 'we're asleep, both of us, and a-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 spy-glass--that's what it is. Ever see any conjuring? I see a chap at the Mile End Empire what made things turn into things like winking. It's the spy-glass, 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 bounds to the wonders of science. Blest if this ain't one of 'em.'

'Let me look,' said Edward.

'All right; only you mark me. Whatever you sets eyes on'll grow and grow--like the flower-tree the conjurer 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-lace.

'I hold this up,' he said, 'and you look.'

Next moment he had dropped the boot-lace, 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 Gustus, 'wouldn't I like to look at my victuals through that there!'

* * * * *

Thus we find Edward, of the villa--and through him Gustus, of the slum--in possession of a unique instrument of magic. What could they do with it?