en he found himself
at the entrance to a passage with brilliantly illuminated shops on
either side. On his right stood a weighing machine and an automatic
figure. Without a moment's hesitation he jumped on the little platform
of the weighing machine and slipped a penny in the slot. As he was quite
sure that he weighed eleven stone, he could not help smiling when the
indicator registered only one. Either the machine has gone wrong, he
thought, or I have been transported to some other planet, ten times
larger, or ten times smaller than the earth; he had been a pupil at the
School of Navigation, you see, and knew something of astronomy.

He jumped off and turned to the automatic figure, eager to find out what
it contained; his penny had hardly dropped when a little flap opened
and a large, white envelope, sealed with a big, red seal, fell out. He
couldn't make out the letters on the seal, but that was neither here nor
there, as he did not know who his correspondent was.

He tore open the envelope and read... first of all the signature, just
as everybody else does. The letter began... but I'll tell you that later
on; it's sufficient for you to know now that he read it three times and
then put it into his breast-pocket with a very thoughtful mien; a very
thoughtful mien.

Then he penetrated into the heart of the passage, all the time keeping
carefully in the centre of the carpet. There were all sorts of shops,
but not a single human being, either before or behind the counters. When
he had walked a little way, he stopped before a big shop window, behind
which a great number of shells and snails were exhibited. As the door
stood open, he went in. The walls of the shop were lined with shelves
from floor to ceiling and filled with snails collected from all the
oceans of the world. Nobody was in the shop, but a ring of tobacco smoke
hung in the air, which looked as if somebody had only just blown it.
Victor, who was a bright lad, put his finger through it. "Hurrah!" he
laughed, "now I'm engaged to Miss Tobacco!"

A queer sound, like the ticking of a clock, fell on his ear, but there
was no clock anywhere, and presently he discovered that the sound came
from a bunch of keys. One of the keys had apparently just been put
into the cash-box, and the other keys swung to and fro with the regular
movement of a pendulum. This went on for quite a little while. Then
there was silence once more, and when it was as still as still could be,