"Get a fish, now! A wood-en fish, with a re-al hook, out of re-al running water. Each third fish contains a number a number, which—"
"See how easy it is? Just throw the wooden ring, like this, over the peg!"
"Come-on-Redjacket! Bill, turn that crank faster! Come-on-Redjacket for 'alf a crown!
This was the place.
Near the race-track, where the crowd bounced him round its edges like a roulette-ball, a wide space had been left between both lines of booths and stalls to form a sort of cross-avenue.
Beyond the open space on his right set some hundred feet back, was the Mirror Maze. It stood alone; nothing anywhere near it except the Whip and the Dodgem.
" 'Ave your try at the coconut-shy!" a voice was intoning, that of a little man who hopped from foot to foot under the spell of his own rhyming. "'Ave your try at the coconut-shy!’ An arm snapped forward; the wooden ball clacked against the coconut; the coconut toppled and fell. "That’s the stuff, sir. One — cigarette! 'Ave your try at the coconut-shy!"
It jigged through Martin's head, like the little man jigging back and forth, as he turned off the drive and ran towards the Mirror Maze. The loud-speaker had been right in calling the Mirror Maze its biggest attraction.
The structure was very large, circular in shape (odd, wasn’t that for a mirror maze?), and 'practical' in the sense that it had been built of very light wood painted dull silver. The words MIRROR MAZE stared at Martin in red letters.
But there was nobody at the ticket-seller's place. Nobody to speak into the microphone of the loud-speaker. No visitors. Nobody at all. Over the door hung a curtain of black felt, a good deal heavier and thicker than the under-felt for carpets.