dward gave him the glass.
He directed it with inexpert fingers to the sea-wall, so little trodden
that on it the grass grows, and the sea-pinks, and even convolvulus and
mock-strawberry.

'Oh, look!' cried Edward, very loud. 'Look at the grass!'

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_!'

[Illustration: 'Look!' he said, 'look!' and pointed.]

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 lik