e--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?

This was the question which they talked over every time they met, and
they met continually. Edward's aunt, who at home watched him as cats
watch mice, rashly believed that at the seaside there was no mischief
for a boy to get into. And the gentleman who commanded the tented camp
believed in the ennobling effects of liberty.

After the boot, neither had dared to look at anything through the
telescope--and so they looked _at_ it, and polished it on their sleeves
till it shone again.

Both were agreed that it would be a fine thing to get some money and
look at it, so that it would grow big. But Gustus never had any
pocket-money, and Edward had had his confiscated to pay for a window he
had not intended to break.

Gustus felt certain that some one would find out about the spy-glass and
take it away from them. His experience was that anything you happened to
like was always taken away. Edward knew that his aunt would want to take
the telescope away to 'take care of' for him. This had already happened
with the carved chessmen that his father had sent him from India.

'I been thinking,' said Gustus, on the third day. 'When I'm a man I'm
a-going to be a burglar. You has to use your headpiece in that trade, I
tell you. So I don't think thinking's swipes, like some blokes do. And I
think p'r'aps it don't turn everything big. An' if we could find out
what it don't turn big we could see what we wanted to turn big or what
it didn't turn big, and then it wouldn't turn anything big except what
we wanted it to. See?'

Edward did not see; and I don't suppose you do, either.

So Gustus went on to explain that teacher had told him there were some
substances impervious to light, and some to cold, and so on and so
forth, and that what they wanted was a substance that should be
impervious to the magic effects of the spy-glas