had recommended the shop, and the name instantly seized
upon Tony's imagination and will remain with it evermore. He never for
one moment connected it with the urbane gentleman in eyeglasses and a
funny little round hat who owned the shop. For Tony "Taraporevala" will
always suggest endless vistas of halls, fitted with books, shelves, and
tall stacks of books, and counters laden with piles of books. It seemed
amazing to find anything so vast in such a narrow street. There was
something magic about it, like the name. Tony was sure that some day
when he should explore the forest of Coln St. Aldwyn he would come upon
a little solid door in a great rock. A little solid door studded with
heavy nails and leading to a magic cave full of unimaginable treasure.
This door should only open to the incantation of "Taraporevala." None of
your "abracadabras" for him.

And just as Mummy had talked much of "Wren's End" in happier days, so
now Auntie Jan told them endless stories about it and what they would
all do there when they went home. Some day, when he knew her better, he
would ask her about Coln St. Aldwyn's. He felt he didn't know her
intimately enough to do so yet, but he was gradually beginning to have
some faith in her. She was a well-instructed person, too, on the whole,
and she answered a straight question in a straight way.

It was one of the things Tony could never condone in the big man called
Daddie, that he could never answer the simplest question. He always
asked another in return, and there was derision of some sort concealed
in this circuitous answer. Doubtless he meant to be pleasant and
amusing--Tony was just enough to admit that--but he was, so Tony felt,
profoundly mistaken in the means he sought. He took liberties, too;
punching liberties that knocked the breath out of a small boy's body
without actually hurting much; and he never, never talked sense. Tony
resented this. Like the Preacher, he felt there was a time to jest and a
time to refrain from jesting, and it didn't amuse him a bit to be
punched and rumpled and told he was a surly little devil if he attempted
to punch back. In some vague way Tony felt that it wasn't playing the
game--if it was a game. Often, too, for the past year and more, he
connected the frequent disappearances of the big man with trouble for
Mummy. Tony understood Hindustani as well as and better than English.
His extensive vocabulary in the former would have astonished his
mother's