Then abruptly my attention was caught by one of the odd-looking
assistants. He was some way off and evidently unaware of my presence--
I saw a sort of three-quarter length of him over a pile of toys
and through an arch--and, you know, he was leaning against a pillar
in an idle sort of way doing the most horrid things with his features!
The particular horrid thing he did was with his nose. He did it
just as though he was idle and wanted to amuse himself. First of all
it was a short, blobby nose, and then suddenly he shot it out
like a telescope, and then out it flew and became thinner and thinner
until it was like a long, red, flexible whip. Like a thing in
a nightmare it was! He flourished it about and flung it forth
as a fly-fisher flings his line.

My instant thought was that Gip mustn't see him. I turned about,
and there was Gip quite preoccupied with the shopman, and thinking
no evil. They were whispering together and looking at me. Gip was
standing on a little stool, and the shopman was holding a sort of
big drum in his hand.

"Hide and seek, dadda!" cried Gip. "You're He!"

And before I could do anything to prevent it, the shopman had clapped
the big drum over him. I saw what was up directly. "Take that off,"
I cried, "this instant! You'll frighten the boy. Take it off!"

The shopman with the unequal ears did so without a word, and held
the big cylinder towards me to show its emptiness. And the little
stool was vacant! In that instant my boy had utterly disappeared? . . .