say, 'My children, I do not know you one from another,' and at these
words of Time empty worlds shall reel."

And for some while then I was silent, for my imagination went out into
those far years and looked back at me and mocked me because I was the
creature of a day.

Suddenly I was aware by the old man's heavy breathing that he had gone
to sleep. It was not an ordinary shop: I feared lest one of his gods
should wake and call for him: I feared many things, it was so dark,
and one or two of those idols were something more than grotesque. I
shook the old man hard by one of his arms.

"Tell me the way to the cottages," I said, "on the edge of the fields
we know."

"I don't think we can do that," he said.

"Then supply me," I said, "with the goods."

That brought him to his senses. He said, "You go out by the back door
and turn to the right"; and he opened a little, old, dark door in the
wall through which I went, and he wheezed and shut the door. The back
of the shop was of incredible age. I saw in antique characters upon a
mouldering board, "Licensed to sell weasels and jade earrings." The
sun was setting now and shone on little golden spires that gleamed
along the roof which had long ago been thatched and with a wonderful
straw. I saw that the whole of Go-by Street had the same strange
appearance when looked at from behind. The pavement was the same as
the pavement of which I was weary and of which so many thousand miles