"If I was rich," said Gip, dabbing a finger at the Disappearing Egg,
"I'd buy myself that. And that"--which was The Crying Baby, Very Human
--and that," which was a mystery, and called, so a neat card asserted,
"Buy One and Astonish Your Friends."

"Anything," said Gip, "will disappear under one of those cones.
I have read about it in a book.

"And there, dadda, is the Vanishing Halfpenny--, only they've put it
this way up so's we can't see how it's done."

Gip, dear boy, inherits his mother's breeding, and he did not propose
to enter the shop or worry in any way; only, you know, quite unconsciously
he lugged my finger doorward, and he made his interest clear.

"That," he said, and pointed to the Magic Bottle.

"If you had that?" I said; at which promising inquiry he looked up
with a sudden radiance.

"I could show it to Jessie," he said, thoughtful as ever of others.

"It's less than a hundred days to your birthday, Gibbles," I said,
and laid my hand on the door-handle.

Gip made no answer, but his grip tightened on my finger, and so
we came into the shop.

It was no common shop this; it was a magic shop, and all the prancing
precedence Gip would have taken in the matter of mere toys was wanting.