nd then Gip had turned
and come to me with a bright little smile, as though for a moment he had
missed me.

And he was carrying four parcels in his arm!

He secured immediate possession of my finger.

For the second I was rather at a loss. I stared round to see the door of
the Magic Shop, and, behold, it was not there! There was no door, no shop,
nothing, only the common pilaster between the shop where they sell
pictures and the window with the chicks! ...

I did the only thing possible in that mental tumult; I walked straight to
the kerbstone and held up my umbrella for a cab.

"'Ansoms," said Gip, in a note of culminating exultation.

I helped him in, recalled my address with an effort, and got in also.
Something unusual proclaimed itself in my tail-coat pocket, and I felt and
discovered a glass ball. With a petulant expression I flung it into the
street.

Gip said nothing.

For a space neither of us spoke.

"Dadda!" said Gip, at last, "that _was_ a proper shop!"

I came round with that to the problem of just how the whole thing had
seemed to him. He looked completely undamaged--so far, good; he was
neither scared nor unhinged, he was simply tremendously satisfied with the
afternoon's entertainment, and there in his arms were the four parcels.

Confound it! what could be in them?

"Um!" I said. "Little boys can't go to shops like that every day."

He received this with his usual stoicism, and for a moment I was sorry I
was his father and not his mother, and so couldn't suddenly there,
_coram publico,_ in our hansom, kiss him. After all, I thought, the
thing wasn't so very bad.

But it was only when we opened the parcels that I really began to be
reassured. Three of them contained boxes of soldiers, quite ordinary lead
soldiers, but of so good a quality as to make Gip altogether forget that
originally these parcels had been Magic Tricks of the only genuine sort,
and the fourth contained a kitten, a little living white kitten, in
excellent health and appetite and temper.

I saw this unpacking with a sort of provisional relief. I hung about in
the nursery for quite an unconscionable time...

That happened six months ago. And now I am beginning to believe it is
all right. The kitten had only the magic natural to all kittens, and
the soldiers seemed as steady a company as any colonel could desire. And
Gip----?

The intelligent parent will understand that I have to go cautiously with
Gip.

But I went