conjurer's manner. "Paper," he said, and took a sheet out of
the empty hat with the springs; "string," and behold his mouth was
a string-box, from which he drew an unending thread, which when
he had tied his parcel he bit off--and, it seemed to me, swallowed
the ball of string. And then he lit a candle at the nose of one
of the ventriloquist's dummies, stuck one of his fingers (which
had become sealing-wax red) into the flame, and so sealed the parcel.
"Then there was the Disappearing Egg," he remarked, and produced
one from within my coat-breast and packed it, and also The Crying
Baby, Very Human. I handed each parcel to Gip as it was ready,
and he clasped them to his chest.

He said very little, but his eyes were eloquent; the clutch of
his arms was eloquent. He was the playground of unspeakable emotions.
These, you know, were REAL Magics. Then, with a start, I discovered
something moving about in my hat--something soft and jumpy. I whipped
it off, and a ruffled pigeon--no doubt a confederate--dropped out
and ran on the counter, and went, I fancy, into a cardboard box
behind the papier-mache tiger.

"Tut, tut!" said the shopman, dexterously relieving me of my headdress;
"careless bird, and--as I live--nesting!"

He shook my hat, and shook out into his extended hand two or three
eggs, a large marble, a watch, about half-a-dozen of the inevitable
glass balls, and then crumpled, crinkled paper, more and more and more,
talking all the time of the way in which people neglect to brush
their hats INSIDE as well as out, politely, of course, but with
a certain personal application. "All sorts of things accumulate,
sir. . . . Not YOU, of course, in particular. . . . Nearly every