ing, and was flying up to the ceiling and down again, and
walking on his hands, and so forth, when his mother said:

"Dear, do be quiet. Why don't you take a glass and amuse yourself with
it? Here's the key of the cupboard."

She threw it to him and he caught it and ran to a tall bureau opposite
and unlocked it. After humming and flitting about in front of it for a
little time, he pulled a thing like a slate off a shelf where there were
a large number of them.

"What have you got?" said his mother.

"The one I didn't get to the end of yesterday, about the dragon."

"Oh, that's a very good one," said she. "I used to be very fond of
that."

"I liked it awfully as far as I got," he said, and was betaking himself
to a settle on the other side of the room when I asked if I might see
it, and he brought it to me.

It was just like a small looking-glass in a frame, and the frame had one
or two buttons or little knobs on it. Wag put it into my hand and then
got behind me and put his chin on my shoulder.

"That's where I'd got to," he said; "he's just going out through the
forest."

I thought at the first glance that I was looking at a very good copy of
a picture. It was a knight on horseback, in plate-armour, and the armour
looked as if it had really seen service. The horse was a massive white
beast, rather of the cart-horse type, but not so "hairy in the hoof";
the background was a wood, chiefly of oak-trees; but the undergrowth
was wonderfully painted. I felt that if I looked into it I should see
every blade of grass and every bramble-leaf.

"Ready?" said Wag, and reached over and moved one of the knobs. The
knight shook his rein, and the horse began to move at a foot-pace.

"Well, but he can't _hear_ anything, Wag," said his father.

"I thought you wanted to be quiet," said Wag, "but we'll have it aloud
if you like."

He slid aside another knob, and I began to hear the tread of the horse
and the creaking of the saddle and the chink of the armour, as well as a
rising breeze which now came sighing through the wood. Like a cinema,
you will say, of course. Well, it was; but there was colour and sound,
and you could hold it in your hand, and it wasn't a photograph, but the
live thing which you could stop at pleasure, and look into every detail
of it.

Well, I went on reading, as you may say, this glass. In a theatre, you
know, if you saw a knight riding through a forest, the effect would be
managed by making the