alarm was given, followed by the usual unbreathing silence. The little boy
fixedly bent his magic eye around the corner of the house, the little girl
scrambling to him over the grass to clutch one of his arms, to listen
fearfully for the setting of the monster's crutches at the end of each
stride, to feel if the earth trembled, as it often distinctly did, under
his awful tread.

Wider grew the eyes of both at each "Now he's nearer still!" of the little
boy, until at last the girl must hide her head lest she see that awful
face leering past the corner. For, once the Gratcher's eye met yours
fairly, he caught you in an instant and worked his will. This was to pick
you up and look at you on all sides at once with the eyes in his
finger-ends, which tickled you so that you lost your mind.

But now, at the shrillest and tensest report of progress from the gifted
watcher, all in a wondrous second of realisation, they turned to look into
each other's eyes--and their ecstasy of terror was gone in the quick
little self-conscious laughs they gave. It was all at once as if two
grown-ups had in a flash divined that they had been playing at a childish
game under some spell. The moment was not without embarrassment, because
of their having caught themselves in the very act and frenzy of showing
terror of this clumsy fiction. Foolishly they averted their glances, after
that first little laugh of sudden realisation; but again their eyes met,
and this time they laughed loud and long with a joy that took away not
only all fears of the Gratcher forever, but their first embarrassment of
themselves. Then, with no word of the matter whatsoever, each knowing that
the other understood, they began to talk of life again, feeling older and
wiser, which truly they were.

For, though many in time wax brave to beard their Gratcher even in his